Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter en blogs updates van 11-12-2024

Updated December 10, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Currently, Viva Amplify users have no easy way to reuse content that has previously been published in a campaign and often must copy and paste content from one publication to the next manually. Coming soon, a Viva Amplify user will be able to reuse content by copying an existing publication using a centralized ‘Save copy’ button available on any given campaign publication. This new feature streamlines the content creation process and maximizes efficiency for all communicators.

Important: Due to the recent our recent editor updates for Outlook and Teams distribution channels, any publications that were created using the old editor version will have their content reset to the main draft without customizations when copying a publication. This only applies to publications created on the old editor versions. For any new publications created, copying a publication will create a copy of the publications including any customized content and audiences as intended. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 409234

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out early January 2025 (previously mid-December) and expect to complete by late January 2025 (previously late December). 

[How this affects your organization:]

Soon, Amplify users will be able to copy existing publications in a campaign regardless of the publication’s status. This feature is available for users in the web/desktop experience. Please note that Amplify on Mobile iOS & Android applications are out of scope currently.

The “save a copy” button is present under the ‘More options’ button in the campaign overview and publications tab where all the publications are present. Users can also access it when authoring right under the ‘Save and close’ button on the command bar. Please note that when a publication is copied, it will copy all content of the publication, including all channel customization across SharePoint, Teams and Outlook, as well as the audiences of the original publication if desired. 

Additionally, for preview customers, the copy a publication feature does not support the ability to copy Viva Engage customized content. This will come as part of a separate release in the future.  

[What you can do to prepare:]

There is no action for admins beyond reviewing any internal help or guidance you have may have created for end users.  

Updated December 9, 2024:  We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

This rollout will enable users to use prompts in to create charts, graphs and data analysis in Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat (BizChat). Users can also view the Python code for these charts, graphs, and data analysis. This feature requires a license for Microsoft 365 Copilot.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 420363.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out late January 2025 (previously mid-December) and expect to complete by late February 2025 (previously late December).

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, Copilot users are not able to use prompts to create charts, graphs, and data analysis in Copilot Business Chat.

After this rollout, Copilot users can enter prompts in Copilot Business Chat to create charts, graphs, and data analysis. To view the Python code that is generated for a chart/graph, users can select the Code button.

This change will be on by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Learn more: Get started with Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat – Microsoft Support

Updated November 27, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

We are introducing updates that provide capabilities for managing custom fonts for Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Viva Connections. This includes the ability to hide the From Microsoft font packages from Change the look, the ability to apply a font package in your site templates, and updated availability for the From Microsoft font packages.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 420933.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out mid-October 2024 and expect to complete by early November 2024

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out early November 2024 and expect to complete late January 2025 (previously early December).

[How this will affect your organization:]

This rollout will include new Microsoft PowerShell commands that will allow you to get information about the From Microsoft font packages and the ability to hide these font packages if desired. More details for these commands will be available in our PowerShell documentation. We will also provide an update to add an additional site script action that will allow developers and administrators to include and apply font packages as a part of a site template.

Sample action details:

{

"verb": "applyFontPackage",

"fontPackageTitle": "Amasis MT",

"fontPackageId": "1e7a7803-045d-44df-9c7a-d2f2f8562e51",

"fontPackageStore": "OutOfBox"

}

This rollout will also include a change to allow tenants that meet the requirements for custom fonts to discover the feature without needing to activate the SharePoint brand center. For tenants that are currently using the Organization Assets Library functionality with Public content delivery network (CDN), these organizations will see Fonts and the From Microsoft font packages in Change the look without any additional actions.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Get started with the SharePoint Online Management Shell | Microsoft Learn (will be updated)

Updated December 10, 2024: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

Your Microsoft 365 subscription is being updated with a new service in your Outlook: Org Explorer. This organization chart helps your visualize your company’s internal structure and discover connections, roles, and responsibilities among you and other people across teams. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 421191.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide) for new Outlook for Windows, Outlook for Web, and Outlook for Mac: We will begin rolling out mid-January 2025 and expect to complete by mid-April 2025 (previously late February).

General Availability (Worldwide) for classic Outlook: We will begin rolling out mid-January 2025 and expect to complete by early April 2025.

Note: The access to Org Explorer will depend on which Outlook service platform the user is using. Therefore, we recommend you switch to the new Outlook for Windows or Outlook for web to have early access to this new feature. 

[How this will affect your organization]

Once the new service is available for your organization, you can access the Org Explorer app via Outlook as below:

Is a Viva license still required to access Org Explorer?

After the rollout in January 2025, Org Explorer will not require a Viva premium license. 

[What you need to do to prepare]

There is no action required now. The documentation of Introducing Org Explorer is going to be updated soon for additional information regarding Org Explorer.

The room audio auto-detect and pre-select feature for Microsoft Teams BYOD rooms (released October 2024) will soon activate the video component of composite audio-video peripherals as the selected camera in Teams. This message applies to Teams for Windows desktops and Teams for Mac desktops.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 469496.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out mid-January 2025 and expect to complete by late January 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out in late January 2025 and expect to complete by early February 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

When a user selects an audio peripheral in the Room Audio option on the meeting prejoin screen, if that peripheral has a video component, that video component will be used as the video device for the Teams meeting.

This change will be available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Inform your users that this new behavior will be coming so they are aware that the room’s camera will be used if there is one.

We’re introducing a pay-as-you-go (PayG) billing model for Agents in SharePoint allowing organizations to use an Azure subscription to pay for the service based on the number of queries used.

[When this will happen:]

Pay-as-you-go billing for Agents in SharePoint is expected to be released starting mid-January 2025. Pay-as-you-go services are disabled by default and services will be available to be used only after PayG billing is set up.

General Availability (WW): We will begin rolling out mid-January 2024 and expected to complete by early February 2024.

[How this will affect your organization:]

With this update, admins can now provide users without Copilot licenses with the ability to use and create agents on any SharePoint site or document library they have access to. Users with Microsoft 365 Copilot seat licenses can continue using agents in SharePoint according to their license terms. 

[What you need to do to prepare:]

To use agents in SharePoint on a pay-as-you-go basis, admins must first set up billing and activate the service in the Microsoft 365 admin center. An Azure subscription and resource group are required to set up pay-as-you-go billing.

Admins need to have the owner or contributor role for the Azure subscription to setup billing. Select Activate pay-as-you-go services from the Setup page to get started.

Follow these steps to enable PAYG billing for Agents in SharePoint:

1. Visit the https://admin.microsoft.com/Adminportal/Home#/syntex/documents as a Global Admin or SharePoint Admin
2. Click Pay-as-you-go services in org settings or Activate pay-as-you-go under setup.
3. Go to “Agents in SharePoint” Tab under Billing Tab
4. Setup billing by adding Subscription, Region, and Resource group.

To use pay-as-you go for Agents in SharePoint, you need:

• An Azure subscription.
• An Azure resource group in that subscription.
• For information about how to create an Azure subscription, see Create your initial Azure subscriptions.
• For information about how to create an Azure resource group, see Manage Azure resource groups by using the Azure portal.

Note: The use of PayG to allow unlicensed users to utilize Agents in SharePoint will respect any controls in place to manage Copilot within the organization.

We are introducing a new entry point to Viva Connections from the SharePoint app bar, which will enhance the integration between the Intranet and Viva Connections.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 468290.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out mid-January 2025 and expect to complete by late January 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out late January 2025 and expect to complete by mid-February 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

After the rollout, end users can easily and seamlessly navigate to Viva Connections via any SharePoint site. 

Note: This feature will only be available to customers who have a configured and published dashboard and an enabled Viva Connections experience on their tenants. This feature will be on by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout.

We recommend creating awareness about this feature with your users by sending a News post.

You may want to update any relevant documentation.

Coming soon in Microsoft Purview | eDiscovery: When you access any case via the eDiscovery (preview) new user experience, you will have the ability to generate and download a hit-by-term query report on a KQL (Keyword Query Language) query in your review sets. The report will include the count and volume of the items hit on a particular keyword or a list of compound queries.

This public preview is only available in the new Microsoft Purview portal’s eDiscovery new user experience (preview). This feature is not available in the classic eDiscovery Premium user experience.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 171751.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out early December 2024 and expect to complete by early January 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out late February 2025 and expect to complete by early March 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

This preview is available by default and won’t affect your organization’s current eDiscovery workflow.

To access this new report in eDiscovery (preview), go to Cases (preview) > Review sets and open a review set. On the Actions menu, select Query report (preview). Paste in your compound query to generate a hit-by-term report.

• Run hit-by-term reports on your keywords and compound queries (KQL) (locations with hits, hit count, hit %, volume) for items in a review set. 
• Download your hit-by-term reports into a .csv file.
• Quickly review the items with hits in a single view.

Create Query reports:

View Query reports:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Evaluate how this feature will impact your organization’s eDiscovery process and, if needed, modify your internal documents accordingly.

Learn more: Use the Query Report to create keyword reports for KeyQL queries (preview) | Microsoft Learn

Coming soon: Users will be able to pop out the side panes for Notes, Chat, and Microsoft Copilot panes in Microsoft Teams meetings

Note: The Copilot pane is only available in Worldwide environments with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 421607.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out mid-January 2025 and expect to complete by early February 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out early February 2025 and expect to complete by late February 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

After the rollout, users will see a pop-out icon at the top of their Notes, Chat, and Copilot side panes in Teams meetings. This change will be on by default.

When users select the icon, the pane will pop out into a separate window that the user can resize and drag to their desired position, based on their screen setup and their productivity goals for the meeting. Users can view multiple meeting features at the same time, so they don’t miss the chat while they are monitoring meeting notes.

Chat window in the default position in a meeting:

Chat windows popped out into a separate window:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. Please notify your users about this change and update any relevant training documentation.

We are excited to announce a new capability in the Microsoft Teams admin center designed to ensure that device operations are non-disruptive for Android-based Teams devices.

This new feature allows software updates, restarts, and configuration updates to occur only when the device is idle (not busy), preventing any disruptions during meetings or calls. Device admins will now have the ability to manage these operations without affecting end-user experience, ensuring smoother and uninterrupted device usage.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 418120.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): We will begin rolling out late February 2025 and expect to complete by early March 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

This change will significantly enhance the user experience by ensuring that device operations such as software updates, restarts, and configuration updates are carried out only when the device is idle. This means meetings or calls will no longer be interrupted by these operations. This change will be applicable for Teams Rooms on Android, Panels, Phones, and Displays.

This change will require an update for Teams app and the Teams admin agent app to take effect. We will update this message closer to the release date with details about the required versions.

With this change, the following device operations will automatically function in a non-disruptive way:

• Software update
• Device restart
• Configuration update

This change will be applicable for operations created by administrators manually from Teams admin center or the Teams Rooms Pro Management Portal, as well as those being carried out automatically.

How this will work:

At the time of execution, the device status is checked. The execution goes forward only if the device is free (no ongoing meeting or call) and has no upcoming scheduled event on the calendar.

A few minutes before the execution starts, the device shows a notification for the end-users, informing them that the operation is about to start. The device users get an option to Postpone the execution if they want to use the device.

The execution of the operation does not start if the device is busy, or has upcoming scheduled events on the calendar, or the end-user has opted to postpone the execution. The device status is checked at regular intervals for a safe window for execution.

The status of the operation is available in Teams admin center. Admins can view the details on the device page under the History tab.

This ensures that the end-users do not face any disturbance while they are using Teams devices.

Additional aspects

There could be scenarios where the devices are extremely busy thus delaying the execution of the operation. Administrators will have an option to decide the execution approach if the execution is unable to start even after 24 hrs. There are two options:

• The operation is cancelled after having tried for 24 hrs. There will be no impact on the device. If the administrator created this operation, they can come back can create it again. This is the default behavior.
• The operation is force-executed after having tried for 24 hrs. This option will execute the operation, but the status of the device will not be checked at this point. This may cause some disruption if the device is in use.

The option to cancel or force the execution of the operations after the 24-hr search of a safe-execution window can be configured from Teams admin center through the Configuration profiles.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

The changes will take effect automatically after updating the devices to the required Teams app and Teams admin agent versions. The updates will happen automatically, but admins can choose to update manually also. The details about the required versions will be announced closer to the release date. Refer to Update Microsoft Teams devices remotely – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn for more details about updating devices.

Admins should familiarize themselves with the new controls available in the Teams admin center. They should ensure that they configure the settings appropriately to suit their organization’s needs. Additionally, it’s recommended to communicate these changes to end-users, so they are aware of the improved experience and new notifications they might receive regarding device operations.

We believe this feature will greatly improve the reliability and user experience of Teams devices in your organization.

For any clarification, feel free to reach out to Microsoft Support.

Before rollout, we will update this post with revised documentation.

A new Microsoft Teams feature empowers moderators to respond discreetly to attendee questions during Teams events. This functionality ensures that responses to sensitive questions, personal inquiries, or follow-up discussions are not broadcast to the entire audience, allowing for a more tailored and respectful communication experience.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 417158.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out in early January 2025 and expect to complete in late January 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Moderators can privately respond to an attendee’s question, and the attendee can reply back to the moderator in private. After this exchange, the moderator can choose to either publish or dismiss the question without the private conversation being visible to other attendees.

Moderators also have the option to enable or disable the “Private moderator replies to individual attendees” feature in the Q&A settings, which is only available when Moderation is turned on for the event. By default, this feature is enabled.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Notify the meeting organizers within your organization that this feature will be available for use in meetings, webinars, and town halls. The Q&A public documentation will soon be updated to include further details about this feature.

• This security update includes improvements that were a part of update KB5046740 (released November 21, 2024).
• This update makes quality improvements to the servicing stack, which is the component that installs Windows updates.
• This update makes miscellaneous security improvements to internal OS functionality. 

• Windows 11, versions 24H2: KB5048667
• Windows 11, versions 23H2 and 22H2: KB5048685
• Windows 10, versions 22H2 and 21H2: KB5048652
• Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC 2019 and Windows Server 2019: KB5048661
• Windows 10 LTSB 2016 and Windows Server 2016: KB5048671
• Windows 10 LTSB 2015: KB5048703
• Windows Server 2025: KB5048667
• Windows Server 2022: KB5048654
• Windows Server 2012 R2: Monthly Rollup: KB5048735
• Windows Server 2012: Monthly Rollup: KB5048699
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Service Pack 1: Monthly Rollup: KB5048695 / Security Only: KB5048676
• Windows Server 2008 SP2: Monthly Rollup: KB5048710 / Security Only: KB5048744

We've released updates to the following update channels for Microsoft 365 Apps:

• Current Channel
• Monthly Enterprise Channel
• Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (Preview)
• Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel

[When this will happen:]

We'll be gradually rolling out these updates of Microsoft 365 Apps to users on those update channels starting December 10th, 2024 (PST).

[How this will affect your organization:]

If your Microsoft 365 Apps clients are configured to automatically update from the Office Content Delivery Network (CDN), then no action is required.

If you manage updates directly you can now download these latest updates and begin deployment.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

To get more details about these updates view the following release notes:

• Current Channel
• Monthly Enterprise Channel
• Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (Preview)
• Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel