Office 365 Weekly Digest | May 26 – June 1, 2019

Welcome to the May 26 – June 1, 2019 edition of the Office 365 Weekly Digest.

There were only two features added to the Office 365 Roadmap last week - one for Microsoft Teams, and the other for Outlook on the web.  

The June schedule for Azure Active Directory webinars is now available. This week's spotlight event is the Planner Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) on Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 9am Pacific.

The theme for last week's blog posts was "What's New", with a look at updates and new features in May 2019 for Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive and Microsoft Forms. There is also information on improved brand customization across Microsoft 365.

Noteworthy item highlights include a simplified user experience for Outlook on Windows, Dark Mode and other updates for OneNote, and the May 2019 release details for Office 365 on Windows Desktop.

OFFICE 365 ROADMAP

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

UPCOMING EVENTS

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

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. The session is also available on demand at https://aka.ms/fromskypetoteamsondemand.

• Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 1pm PT
• Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 10am PT
• Monday, June 10, 2019 at 12pm PT
• Tuesday, June 11, 2019 at 12pm PT

Getting Started with Microsoft Teams

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. The session is also available on demand at https://aka.ms/teamsgettingstartedondemand.

• Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 11am PT
• Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 8am PT
• Monday, June 10, 2019 at 10am PT
• Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 12pm PT

Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks (Part 1)

Designed for those who are already familiar with Microsoft Teams, our Tips and Tricks sessions offer insights, best practices and advanced functionality to help optimize how Teams can work for you. Each session will also include a few real-world examples of how customers are using Microsoft Teams today. Part 1 is focused on tips for conversations and meetings. Many of our interactions start as a simple chat. Learn how you can take those conversations to the next level, including: (1) Formatting messages to help increase response rates, (2) Managing conversations to easily track and follow-up, (3) Organizing conversations, keeping important and active chats front-and-center, (4) Expanding conversations into a full meeting experience, and more. Prefer to watch this session on your own time or simply want a refresher after attending the live training? Access the consolidated on-demand version of Tips and Tricks here: https://aka.ms/teamstipsandtricksondemand.

• Monday, June 3, 2019 at 8am PT
• Wednesday, June 5, 2019 at 12pm PT
• Tuesday, June 11, 2019 at 10am PT

Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks (Part 2)

Designed for those who are already familiar with Microsoft Teams, our Tips and Tricks sessions offer insights, best practices and advanced functionality to help optimize how Teams can work for you. Each session will also include a few real-world examples of how customers are using Microsoft Teams today. Organizing your workflow and projects in Teams can really help simplify productivity. Join us for Part 2 of this series, where you'll learn tips including: (1) Implementing effective strategies creating and managing teams and channels, (2) Leveraging best practices for channel-based conversations, (3) Utilizing a personal team to manage your own productivity, (4) Designing your workspace to quickly find relevant content in Teams, and more. Prefer to watch this session on your own time or simply want a refresher after attending the live training? Access the consolidated on-demand version of Tips and Tricks here: https://aka.ms/teamstipsandtricksondemand.

• Tuesday, June 4, 2019 at 8am PT
• Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 12pm PT
• Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 10am PT

Maximizing Teams Meetings

The average employee spends approximately 30% of their working life in meetings. But meetings in Microsoft Teams are designed to be flexible and enable different types of connections for all the ways that work needs to get done. For users who are familiar with Microsoft Teams but want to better understand and optimize the Teams meeting experience, this session provides guidance into how to create spontaneous and scheduled meetings, leverage the pre, during and post-meeting features, identifying supported devices, and more.

• Monday, June 3, 2019 at 10am PT
• Monday, June 10, 2019 at 8am PT
• Thursday, June 13, 2019 at 12pm PT
• Wednesday, June 19, 2019 at 8am PT

Customer Immersion Experience: Simplifying your data privacy & compliance journey

Join us for a hands-on introduction to Microsoft 365 Compliance features and an opportunity to experience powerful solutions across the data lifecycle of assess, protect and respond. During this 2-hour interactive session, you will explore how to: (1) Understand your compliance from a single pane of glass, (2) Make identity the new perimeter, (3) Discover and govern sensitive data across clouds, devices and apps, (4) Recognize attacks, detect breaches, and recover quickly using automation, and (5) Streamline your operational processes and understand your security posture. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.

• Thursday, June 6, 2019 from 12pm - 2pm PT
• Thursday, June 20, 2019 from 9am – 11am PT
• Thursday, June 20, 2019 from 12pm - 2pm PT

Azure Active Directory Webinars for June

When: Multiple sessions currently scheduled from June 4 - 13, 2019 | Are you looking to deploy Azure Active Directory quickly and easily? We are offering free webinars on key Azure Active Directory deployment topics to help you get up and running. Sessions include Getting Ready for Azure AD, The Basics of Governing your Azure AD and Office 365 Deployment, Securing Your Identities with Azure Multi-Factor Authentication, Choosing the Right Authentication Method for Azure AD, and more. Each 1-hour 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!  Note: There are also some sessions available on-demand.

10 time saving tips and tricks with Outlook mobile

When: Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 9am PT | Outlook mobile brings together your email, calendar, contacts, documents and more in one fast, fluid experience so you can accomplish the most important tasks in just a few seconds. All backed by enterprise-grade security you can trust. Join the Outlook mobile team for a webinar that will highlight cool tips and tricks that save you time and spark joy. You also get to ask any questions and share feedback with the team directly. In this webinar, you will learn: (1) Why Outlook mobile is the right choice for you, (2) Best practices for getting started, (3) Cool tips and tricks that spark joy and let you accomplish the most important tasks in just a few seconds, and (4) Ask questions or share your feedback directly with the Outlook team. There are also sessions from previous months that can be viewed on demand.

Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA): Microsoft Planner

When: Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 9am PT | We are very excited to announce a Microsoft Planner 'Ask Microsoft Anything' (AMA). An AMA is a live online event similar to a "YamJam" on Yammer or an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit. This AMA gives you the opportunity to connect with members of the product teams who will be on hand to answer your questions and listen to feedback. Join in the Planner AMA space, or add the event to your calendar. We look forward to seeing you there!

Microsoft Teams Spring Adoption Series: Ongoing Adoption - Tips and Best Practices

When: Friday, June 7, 2019 at 11am PT | As your user base becomes more comfortable with teams, they'll start to explore functionality beyond basic Chat and Collaboration. "Where should I put my files in Office 365" will become a recurring question as they use Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive. When more Teams come online, best practices like Favoriting a Team, Following a Channel, and using the Activity Feed will help users get the most out of Teams. Your core Project Team should begin to transition from initial enablement to service management and monitoring for service changes and usage issues. Being able to rely/leverage your Champions community for ongoing "best practices" sessions, tips, and communications. Join live, or add the event to your calendar. Note: The top-level link has information and links to the recording for previous sessions in this Spring Adoption Series.

Upgrade 101: Managing your upgrade from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams (Part 1)

As an existing Skype for Business customer, we understand that upgrading to a new technology can be confusing and are committed to supporting you on your journey to Microsoft Teams. Through our two upgrade classes, you will find everything you need to plan and implement your upgrade. Part 1 is focused on upgrade planning and user readiness. Targeting project stakeholders with accountability for Skype for Business to Teams upgrade success and user readiness/change managers, this session serves as the foundation for your upgrade planning, including: (1) An overview of our proven, upgrade success framework, (2) Real-world customer examples, (3) Insights into facilitating user readiness and upgrade acceptance, and (4) Orientation to key upgrade guidance resources.

• Thursday, June 13, 2019 at 10am PT
• Tuesday, June 18, 2019 at 8am PT
• Thursday, June 27, 2019 at 11am PT

Upgrade 101: Managing your upgrade from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams (Part 2)

As an existing Skype for Business customer, we understand that upgrading to a new technology can be confusing and are committed to supporting you on your journey to Microsoft Teams. Through our two upgrade classes, you will find everything you need to plan and implement your upgrade. Part 2 is understanding coexistence and interoperability. Designed for the IT Pro/technical experts implementing the migration from Skype for Business to Teams, this session will arm you with the information you need to know before migrating your users, including: (1) End user experiences during the upgrade, (2) Available journey options an organization can take from online or on-premises as the starting point, and (3) Routing and federation experiences.

• Monday, June 17, 2019 at 9am PT
• Thursday, June 20, 2019 at 9am PT

Microsoft IT: Speaking of Security - Privacy Compliance

When: Thursday, June 20, 2019 at 10am PT | During this webinar, the speakers will discuss the Microsoft security teams approach to privacy compliance. We'll address how we approached the topic and new requirements from GDPR. We'll answer your questions and talk about governance, compliance, and transparency, including all of the elements necessary to build a privacy program. Finally, we'll share some of the key things we learned on our journey. There are other sessions now available on demand at the Speaking of Security webinar series site.

BLOG ROUNDUP

New to Microsoft 365 in May—new tools to streamline compliance and make collaboration inclusive and engaging

In May 2019, we're introducing new tools to help simplify compliance, app updates to boost productivity, and features to foster secure, collaborative user experiences. At Microsoft Build this month, we announced several new capabilities in Microsoft 365 to help developers create people-centered, cross-platform experiences. This month, we introduced capabilities to help you get more done—including updates to SharePoint and the OneNote, Yammer, and Microsoft To-Do apps. New privacy controls allow you to meet compliance obligations and efficiently manage access requests at enterprise scale.

What's New in Microsoft Teams | May 2019

In addition to the announcements that you may have seen from Build Conference, several other features became available this past month of May in Teams! These features include: (1) Find a nearby meeting room easily with proximity-based meeting join in Teams, (2) Let callers know when you are already on the phone with Busy on Busy signal, (3) Make calls directly from Teams with the new Calls App, (4) Share read-only materials with your students in the new Class Materials folder, (5) Multi-team support for Firstline workers who are on more than one team, (6) Manage Teams on your phone, (7) Always be on time for your meetings with "Meeting started" notifications on your phone, (8) Join meetings the way that works for you with "Call me", and (9) Work with your Teams usage reports the way you want by exporting them from the Teams admin center. | Related: Game-Changing Teams Announcements from Build 2019 | GitHub! Code better together with GitHub and Microsoft Teams

SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop: May 2019

We are post-SharePoint Conference 2019 – and the cadence of releasing new capabilities and updates did not slow. This is the all-inclusive recap for all things SharePoint and related technology. Our goal is to provide change management excellence, with clear, concise and timely resources. All the features listed in the post began rolling out to Targeted Release customers in Office 365 as of May 2019 (possibly early June 2019). Some of the updates include: (1) add quizzes, polls and surveys into Microsoft Stream videos via integration with Microsoft Forms, (2) In-geography storage of Yammer messages at rest for new EU customers, (3) General Availability of Microsoft Search, (4) Full-fidelity shared libraries in OneDrive, (5) Sharing links that block downloads for Office files, (6) Updates to the SharePoint Admin Center, and many more.

What's new in May in Microsoft Forms

We continue making it easier to work with Microsoft Forms, the simple way to create surveys, quizzes, and polls. Section, released earlier this month, lets you segment your survey, quiz, or poll questions into individual pages. You can now easily add surveys, quizzes, and polls into your Stream videos. With admin ownership transfer you can transfer form ownership of a disabled account to an active one, helping prevent data leaks while improving visibility into all existing forms.

Office 365 helps you get back to work, now with improved brand customization

In today's modern workplace, people use many different apps, services, and tools to identify what's their most important work to complete. Valuable time is wasted looking for the most recent content, like searching for new comments in one's documents, and the most relevant tools just to get started working. Office.com and the new Office app released on Windows help you get started and back to work more efficiently by pulling together your most relevant apps, including third-party apps your company uses, documents, and places where you and your colleagues are working. Additionally, we are modernizing your custom theming experience to help you represent your company or school brand with a higher quality logo across Office 365. Now, you'll be able any file size and any format to improve the clarity of the logo image that your users see in the Office 365 navigation bar across their Office applications, like Outlook, SharePoint and Office.com. | Resource: Customize the Office 365 theme for your organization

NOTEWORTHY

Outlook for Windows rolls out its simplified user experience

Outlook for Windows has evolved through multiple generations of improvements to create a user experience aimed at making it easier for you to get things done and focus on what matters. Now, after rounds of validation and refinement through customer research and the Coming Soon preview feature, the updates to the user experience are rolling out as the default experience. The optional, Simplified Ribbon provides a streamlined experience for Outlook with a core set of most commonly used commands in a single line and can be easily expanded anytime to the full, classic ribbon. The updated user experience is designed for simplicity, to feel lighter and more open, and focus on getting things done faster. We made it easier to scan the message list with more separation between emails, added stronger treatment for flagged items which are more consistent with other Outlook end-points and updated the single line view to include an unread indicator.

Go Dark Mode and more on OneNote

This month, we're excited to bring you some highly anticipated features in OneNote. You asked, and we heard you. Dark Mode in OneNote for Windows 10 is finally available! To turn on Dark Mode, head over to Settings in the upper right corner of the ribbon, click Options and select Dark under the Color section to switch your OneNote to Dark Mode. Send emails and meetings from Outlook to OneNote for Windows 10, OneNote for Mac and OneNote on the web with ease. In Outlook, click the Send to OneNote add-in to open the location picker panel. Find the destination notebook and section then click Send – it's that easy. Once you go to the selected section in OneNote, your email or meeting will be there. Now, you can insert printouts of Word, Excel, or PowerPoint files into your notebooks for more robust content in OneNote for Windows 10. Finally, simplified ribbon has come to OneNote for the web. Enjoy more space on your screen and quickly get to the tools you need with this update. If you prefer to switch back to the old experience, click the View tab and uncheck Simplified Ribbon to refresh and return to the previous ribbon.

Office 365 for Windows Desktop - May 2019 release details

On May 29th, 2019, Microsoft released Office for Windows Desktop version 1905 (Build 11629.20196). Our Global team translated this update into 44 languages as well as helping the PowerPoint team ship Live captions and subtitles. This cool new feature allows you to transcribe your words as you present and display them on-screen as captions in the same language you are speaking, or as subtitles translated into another language. This can help accommodate individuals in the audience who may be deaf or hard of hearing, or more familiar with another language, respectively. Also, you can now @mention teammates in document, spreadsheet or presentation comments and they will automatically receive an email notification drawing them into the document, spreadsheet or presentation. This new functionality is in Excel, PowerPoint & Word. The new account manager shows all your Office 365 work and personal accounts in one place. Switching between them has never been easier. Co-authoring in Excel has improved the merge success rate when working with conditional formatting, cell styles, range protection, view gridlines, and cross-sheet cut/paste. More information and help content on this release can be found in the What's New in Office 365 page.

Azure Cloud Shell Now Supports Exchange Online

We're very happy to announce that the Exchange Online PowerShell module is now available in Azure Cloud Shell! If you're an Exchange admin and you've never used Azure Cloud Shell before (or have no idea what it even is!), then this blog post is for you. We know it's hard to keep up to date with all the different things Microsoft is doing at any point in time, so we're making sure our Exchange admins know about this pretty nifty capability we recently released. In short, Azure Cloud Shell is a browser-based, authenticated shell experience, hosted by Microsoft. You can use any browser to securely open a shell environment hosted in Azure, then you can connect to Exchange Online (and of course, Azure) – and have the exact same experience managing Exchange Online that you do today – but without any of the concerns about installation of required components or operating system suitability.