Office 365 Weekly Digest | November 25 – December 1, 2018

Welcome to the November 25 -December 1, 2018 edition of the Office 365 Weekly Digest.

There were no new features added to the Office 365 Roadmap last week.  However, there is one correction to the information provided last week regarding the availability of Flow and PowerApps in the (U.S.) Government Community Cloud - the Estimated Release date has been corrected to Q4 CY2018.

Teams continues to be the focus of upcoming events, including a just announced Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) for Teams on Wednesday, December 12, 2018 at 9am Pacific. Also, the Healthcare & Life Sciences Virtual Conference will be held the week of January 7, 2019 with one 90-minute session per day.

Blog posts in last week's roundup include information on the new Teams adoption hub, a summary of the OneDrive Message Center notifications for November, a "pitstop" to review the SharePoint Online roadmap, and recommendations on maintaining security compliance in your organization. In addition, there is an important announcement regarding changes to Flow and PowerApps capabilities that will require Flow and PowerApps Plan 1or Plan 2 in the future.

Noteworthy item highlights include new "impact" information for updates to the Office 365 URLs and IP address ranges, some new Office 365 Online Interactive Guides, a Microsoft IT Showcase for a Microsoft 365 Security Roundtable, as well as the latest updates for Flow.

 

OFFICE 365 ROADMAP

 

Below are the items added to the Office 365 Roadmap last week…

 

However, there is a correction from last week's "Estimated Release" date for PowerApps and Flow availability to GCC tenants. The corrected estimate is Q4 CY2018 as noted below:

 

Feature ID

App / Service

Title Description

Status

Added

Estimated Release

More Info

33770

Flow

PowerApps

PowerApps and Flow availability to GCC tenants PowerApps and Flow will be available to government tenants in the GCC environment.

In development

11/22/2018

Q4 CY2018

n / a

 

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

 

Teams Tuesdays

When: Tuesday, December 4, 2018 from 10am – 11am PT | Whether you're managing a new project or starting your own business, it helps to have a team behind you to brainstorm ideas, tackle the work together, and have some fun along the way. Now you can use Microsoft Teams to do just that. Join our team LIVE every Tuesday from 10-11am PDT to learn how you can get started with the free version of Teams. In this hour, we'll walk you through the product and key features, share best practices for getting started, and answer any questions you may have. We look forward to meeting you!

 

Getting Started with Microsoft Teams

When: Tuesday, December 11, 2018 at 10am PT | This 60-minute session introduces you to the key activities needed to get started with Microsoft Teams today. From setting your profile, to running a meeting, users will leave this session with the foundation needed to use Teams with confidence. Check here for sessions in different time zones and other dates.

 

Upgrade 101: Understanding your upgrade from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams

When: Wednesday, December 12, 2018 at 8am PT | Looking to better understand the upgrade journey from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams? Join us for this 60-minute session to get familiar with our upgrade paths (Upgrade Basic and Upgrade Pro), our resources, and a walkthrough of our upgrade success framework to help you navigate through your journey. Check here for sessions in different time zones and other dates.

 

Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA): Microsoft Teams

When: Wednesday, December 12, 2018 at 9am PT | We are very excited to announce a Microsoft Teams 'Ask Microsoft Anything' (AMA) for Microsoft Teams! An AMA is a live online event similar to a "YamJam" on Yammer or an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit. The AMA will take place on Wednesday, December 12, 2018 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. PT. This AMA gives you the opportunity to connect with members of the product engineering team who will be on hand to answer your questions and listen to feedback. Join in the Microsoft Teams AMA Group, or add it to your calendar. We look forward to seeing you there!

 

[Rescheduled] Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA): Windows 10, version 1809 for IT Pros

When: Thursday, December 13, 2018 at 9am PT | If you're in IT, make sure you join us Thursday, December 13th to get up to speed and get your questions answered about Windows 10, version 1809. An AMA is a live online event similar to a "YamJam" on Yammer or an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit. We've assembled a group of engineers and product managers from the Windows, Window Defender ATP, System Center Configuration Manager, Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft 365 teams—and we'll be answering your questions live during what promises to be an exciting and informative "Ask Microsoft Anything" (AMA) event. Join in the Windows 10 AMA space, or add it to your calendar. We look forward to seeing you there!

 

Make the switch from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams: End User Guidance

When: Thursday, December 13, 2018 at 10am PT | Designed specifically for Skype for Business end users, this course offers everything you need to help make the transition to Microsoft Teams. We'll focus on the core communication capabilities you use today, chat and meetings, as well as provide an orientation to additional collaboration functionality Teams has to offer. Check here for sessions in different time zones and other dates.

 

Modern Workplace Transformation Heallthcare & Life Sciences Virtual Conference

When: Monday, January 7, 2019 – Friday, January 11, 2019 at 9am – 10:30am PT daily | Today's Healthcare & Life Science (HLS) organizations face a myriad of challenges from security threats, inefficiencies in communications/collaboration, and increased competition. Ultimately HLS orgs are seeking to leverage technology to improve diagnostics, patient outcomes, and more. Learn how to digitally transform your HLS organization by attending our Modern Workplace Transformation (MWT) Virtual Conference the week of January 7th, 2019. See how the Microsoft Modern Workplace platform securely enables employee engagement and collaboration across locations and devices. The Microsoft team welcomes you to an opportunity to explore beyond Envision and Ignite. We've lined up some top topics from these events, along with the speakers from Microsoft Corporate, to deliver a series of rich interactive session. This event will include Microsoft's latest innovations for Intelligent Communications, Security, and Modern Collaboration solutions. We have a separate session and focus each day starting at 12 noon eastern and lasting for 90 minutes. Please review the sessions and use the provided links to meeting invites to add to your calendar.

 

BLOG ROUNDUP

 

NEW! Teams Adoption Hub - Enhanced guidance for user adoption projects

We are excited to share with you our new Teams Adoption Hub which you can access at https://aka.ms/TeamsAdoption. This content simplifies the deployment and adoption process for Microsoft Teams and can be applied to other Office 365 workloads. At Ignite we taught the enhanced Office 365 Adoption framework and Microsoft Teams is the first workload to build these enhancements into our core adoption methodology. By breaking our adoption guidance into three key sections - Start, Experiment and Scale - we hope to help organizations accelerate and simplify their adoption with hands-on experience in their organization. This site, which is a portion of the overall Success With Teams guidance, also provides downloadable tools to help you execute your project. These tools include our popular Day in the Life training one sheets, an overall service adoption project plan, example personas and helpdesk guidance to name a few. We have also included enhanced guidance about how to structure teams and channels, leverage an early adopter program and build your own internal Champions program. As always user adoption projects work hand in hand with your overall technical readiness process.

 

OneDrive Message Center Update: November 1 - 30, 2018

We'll be rolling out the following features in November 2018: (1) Block Download for Anyone - rolling out in late November, (2) Organization Links - rolling out in late November, (3) Updates to MyAnalytics on OneDrive for Android & iOS - rolling out in late November, and (4) Camera upload on Android - available now.

 

SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop: November 2018

The SharePoint team has been hard at work and we have some great new updates that were rolled out in November 2018 that you might be interested in! This is the comprehensive, consolidated recap for all things SharePoint to keep you up to date + companion podcast episode. Welcome to The Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop – a bonus monthly podcast episode that will answer, "What's rolling out now for SharePoint and related technologies into Office 365?" These roadmap episodes, and this blog post, will be concise and relevant to the NOW - it's all about supporting good change management based on feedback from you, our listeners/readers - so thank you. Below the embedded podcast episode, you'll see numerous blog sections released roadmap items across the main SharePoint workloads, next month teasers and ongoing helpful resources – scroll and stay informed: (1) Inform and engage with dynamic employee experiences, (2) Teamwork with SharePoint team sites and Microsoft Teams integration, (3) New and updated SharePoint web parts, (4) Important, related technology items, (5) What's coming in December 2018 teasers, and (6) Helpful, ongoing change management resources.

 

How to help maintain security compliance

Your employees need to access, generate, and share organizational information ranging from extremely confidential to informal; you must ensure that all information and the movement of that information comply with industry standards without inhibiting workflow. Microsoft 365 security solutions can help you know what's happening with your data, set permissions and classifications, and discover and help prevent leaks. This post aims to answer the following questions: (1) How can I make it easier to manage compliance processes?, (2) How do I assess data protection controls in an ever-changing compliance landscape?, (3) How can I protect my data no matter where it lives or travels?, and (4) How can I help protect privileged accounts from compromise? | Related: Secure your privileged administrative accounts with a phased roadmap

 

Updates to Microsoft Flow and PowerApps for Office 365

Office 365 plans include PowerApps and Flow capabilities to help organizations extend Office 365. Beyond Office 365, PowerApps and Microsoft Flow Plans 1 and 2 offer additional capabilities including integrating data outside of Office 365 into Office 365 experiences and standalone apps. We are introducing some changes to simplify the distinction between the version of PowerApps and Flow for Office 365 plans and PowerApps and Flow Plans 1 and 2 by making the following changes:

Effective February 1, 2019, the following capabilities will only be available with PowerApps and Flow Plan 1 and Plan 2:

  • Creation and publication of custom connectors in PowerApps and Microsoft Flow
  • HTTP custom actions integrated into Flow outside SharePoint and OneDrive
  • Integration of on-premises data through the on-premises data gateway

Customers with active users of these features will get an automatic extension until January 31, 2020 or the expiration of their existing Office 365 subscription term (whichever is longer). Otherwise, if you have no active usage but still would like to use the features listed above, you can submit a ticket to request an extension via Microsoft Support before January 31, 2019 to ensure uninterrupted service. Extensions will run for twelve months or the expiration of your existing Office 365 subscription term (whichever is longer). Your ability to request an extension will expire on April 30, 2019. After that, unless previously extended, use of these services will require PowerApps and Flow Plan 1 or Plan 2.

 

NOTEWORTHY

 

Office 365 IPs and URLs new impact attribute for published changes

We added a new attribute in the changes web service so that you can get more indication of the criticality of a particular change to your network perimeter environment. The documentation has been updated with details regarding this update. | Related: Office 365 URLs and IP address ranges – Updated November 28, 2018

 

New Online Interactive Guides

We've recently updated our Office 365 Online Interactive Guides. There are new guides for Data Protection, Data Governance, Privileged Access Management, and Advanced eDiscovery. Use these guided walkthroughs to boost your cloud skills, and don't forget to share them with your team!

 

Microsoft IT Showcase: Microsoft 365 Security IT Expert Roundtable

Format: Video (60 mins) | Microsoft is taking an integrated approach with Microsoft 365 to enhance identity protection, information protection, threat protection, and security management. During this webinar, Microsoft security experts answered questions about how we use Microsoft 365 security technologies to create a productive and secure workplace.

 

Office for MAC - November 2018 Release details

On November 13, 2018, Microsoft released Office 2016 for Mac Version 16.19 (Build 18110915) in 27 languages. Our Office International team was responsible for translating this release. You will see the following features once you update: (1) Click the filename at the top of the file to quickly move, rename or browse the version history of your cloud files, (2) Search the web for pictures within Excel, PowerPoint and Word, and (3) Summary Zoom in PowerPoint which allows you to see all of the pieces of your presentation at once in an interactive table of contents. More information and help content on this release can be found in the MAC section of the What's New in Office 365 page.

 

Rich text editing in Microsoft Flow and new partner connectors

We've added a new, rich HTML-based text editor that will help you write HTML-based emails. You can start using this today with the new Send an email (V2) action on the Office 365 Outlook and Outlook.com connectors. This editor allows you to customize the font, use bold, italic or underline, customize the color and highlight, and create lists or links. We have also released for new partner connectors: (1) Imprezian360, (2) Encodian, (3) Soft1, and (4) Zahara. | Related: Flow of The Week - Create and manage a request backlog with Microsoft Flow