Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter en blogs updates van 25-01-2025

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

The latest Teams meeting experiences will be available for Teams on the web in Safari and Firefox browsers – including performance improvements, refreshed pre-join, updated meeting stage, and the updated meeting toolbar. (for anonymous join only) 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 329253

[When this will happen:]

Worldwide: We will begin rolling out early September 2024 (previously mid-August) and expect to complete by early October 2024 (previously late August).

GCC, GCC High and DoD: We will begin rolling out mid-October 2024 (previously mid-September) and expect to complete by mid-February 2025 (previously mid-January).

[How this will affect your organization:]

We make constant steps to improve Teams performance irrespective of the platform – this time we are making the experience of Teams meetings on web (in Safari and Firefox browsers) better for anonymous users (guests). That’s crucial because it improves external collaboration. For example, if participants from your tenant would like to have meetings with non-Teams users (who are often joining as guests) it’ll become simpler as guests joining meeting from Safari/Firefox web browsers won’t have to wait significant amount of time for the meeting experience to load. 

You may also notice that currently meeting UI in Chrome and Safari/Firefox is different, but with this update it won’t be a case anymore and you’ll enjoy all the benefits of modern UI (such as meeting toolbar on top of the screen, etc). 

[What you need to do to prepare:]

You may want to update your internal documentation to inform your users about this improvement.

Updated January 23, 2025: After further review, we will not be rolling this out to GCC. We will communicate via Message center when we are ready to proceed. 

Can’t find a workflow template that matches what you need in Microsoft Teams? You will now be able to describe in detail how you want your automation to work and receive a workflow to match your needs. All you need to do is select the Workflow builder button at the bottom of the create dialog in the Workflows app in Microsoft Teams chat and channel overflow menu. 

Workflow builder will come to the Workflows app in Microsoft Teams chat and channel overflow menu first. Other entry points to Workflows will get this feature later.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 382659.

[When this will happen:]

Worldwide: We will begin rolling out late September 2024 (previously mid-September) and expect to complete by late October 2024 (previously late September).

GCC Release: We will not be proceeding with this change at this time.

[How this will affect your organization:]

All users with the ability to create workflows with the Workflows app in Teams will be able to describe the workflow they are trying to build and then receive a suggested flow. 

Prerequisites

A work or school Teams account with access to a Power Automate environment in Europe or the United States.

Limitations

Power Automate supports workflow descriptions written in the English language only. Descriptions written in other languages might work but are not supported.

Cloud flows are the only type of flow that you can create from a written description.

In the version rolling out, the AI might omit some parameters, even if you provide them in the description.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

No action is needed to prepare for this rollout. If your tenant uses the Power Automate app within Microsoft Teams, you may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

To learn more: Create a cloud flow from a description (preview) – Power Automate | Microsoft Learn

Updated January 16, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon for new Microsoft Outlook for Windows and Outlook for web: Users will be able to add shared folders to their Favorites list in the top left corner of the screen. This message does not apply to Outlook for Mac or Outlook for mobile devices.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 388913.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out early February 2025 (previously early January) and expect to complete by early March 2025 (previously early February). 

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

This new functionality will enable users to add shared folders and individual folders from shared mailboxes to their Favorites. This means that users can easily access important folders from shared resources or individual colleagues, directly from their Favorites. Users can share calendars, or folders that contain mail, contacts, tasks, or notes.

[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 as appropriate.

Learn more: Open and use a shared mailbox in Outlook – Microsoft Support

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

To help increase productivity while working online, web links from Azure Active Directory (AAD) accounts and Microsoft (MSA) accounts in the new Outlook for Windows app will open in Microsoft Edge in a single view showing the opened link side-by-side with the email it came from.

We’re adding this to the new Outlook for windows to have a consistent experience across our applications. If you have previously managed this change for the classic Outlook for Windows (MC545904, MC548092, MC541626) or for Teams (MC669480), your configuration will also apply to the new Outlook for Windows. If you wish to maintain this configuration across all three apps, no action is required.

Note: This does not change the default browser setting in Windows.

[When will this affect your organization:]

We will begin rolling out in late July 2024 and expect to complete by late January 2025 (previously mid-January).

[How this will affect your organization:]

Web links from emails in the new Outlook for Windows app will open side-by-side with the email in Microsoft Edge so users can easily reference the link and email without switching back and forth between apps. Links will open in Microsoft Edge even if it is not the system default browser in Windows.

• Only links set to open via a web browser are affected. Links that are set to open in a client app or within Outlook itself will continue to do so.
• This initial release to the new Outlook for Windows application will only enable links reading pane’s message body content
• User experiences will vary by policy configuration; please see the next section.
• Web links from all accounts in the Outlook for Windows app will open in Microsoft Edge.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

To manage this change, you will need to configure the Choose which browser opens web links policy, which is available today, using the Cloud Policy service for Microsoft 365 (formerly the Office Cloud Policy Service) and Administrative Templates for Microsoft 365 Apps.

• To open web links from the Outlook for Windows app using the system default browser (current default behavior): Enable the policy and select System default browser from the policy options.
  • Users will not be able to disable or change this setting.
• To open web links from the Outlook for Windows app using Microsoft Edge (future default behavior): Enable the policy and select Microsoft Edge from the policy options.
  • Users will not be able to disable or change this setting.
  • Users will receive a notification of this change on the first occurrence.
• To allow users to manage the change: Disable the policy or leave the policy unconfigured. Please note that the future default behavior for web links will be to open in Microsoft Edge.
  • Users will see a notification informing them of this change on the first occurrence. This notification provides users with the option to accept the change/learn more, or to disable the change.
  • The user’s selection will also apply to the experience in the classic Outlook for Windows and Teams.
  • Users may manage this setting at any time in the new Outlook for Windows app via Settings > General > Files and links > Open hyperlinks from Outlook in.
  • If there is an existing user preference set in the classic Outlook for Windows, the new Outlook for Windows will respect it. If the user only sets a preference to use the system default browser in Teams, the new Outlook for Windows will open the links in Microsoft Edge informing them of this change on the first occurrence and users can accept the change/learn more, or to disable the change.

If your organization uses a Microsoft 365 for business plan, your users will need to manage this change individually through the Outlook settings menu: Settings > General > Files and links > Open hyperlinks from Outlook in.

Example of the user notification experience

Read more about how we’re improving the experience between Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Edge with this feature in: Web links from Outlook and Teams open in Microsoft Edge in side-by-side view – Outlook | Microsoft Learn.

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Update December 20, 2024: There is an issue causing users to get an access denied error when attempting to open files for which they are not the RMS owner, when the file has a sensitivity label configured for dynamic watermarking. We are working to resolve this issue.

Dynamic watermarking is a new sensitivity label setting that will add watermark text containing the consuming user’s information onto content in files created in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Sensitivity labels from Microsoft Purview Information Protection help you classify and protect your organization’s data. Learn more: (Preview) Dynamic watermarking for sensitivity labels in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint – Microsoft Community Hub

This message applies to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on the web, Desktop/Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS platforms.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 400717.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out mid-July 2024 and expect to complete by early August 2024.

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

The rest of the channels will follow in line with their normal cadence.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before the rollout: Admins are not able to configure dynamic watermarking though sensitivity labels in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

After the rollout, refer to the admin documentation to configure dynamic watermarks in your tenant. This feature is off by default. Admins must configure the feature before it is accessible to users.

[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

• Apply encryption using sensitivity labels | Microsoft Learn
• (Preview) Dynamic watermarking for sensitivity labels in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint – Microsoft Community Hub

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon for Microsoft Outlook: If users have enabled work hours and location in Settings, their colleagues will be able to more quickly see who plans to be in the office with a new calendar feature.

This message applies to new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 410986.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out in mid-August 2024 and expect to complete by late August 2024.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out early October 2024 and expect to complete by early February 2025 (previously mid-January).

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout: Users select the Location icon for each day in the calendar to see who plans to be in the office:

After this rollout: In addition to the Location icon, users will have a new “always on” peek in the top right of the calendar that shows who plans to be in the office for the current day:

This feature is on by default and available to all users of new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web.

[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.

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

We are excited to announce two new features in the Teams Store that will help users discover and adopt apps in Microsoft Teams. These enhancements are designed to streamline how users find and engage with apps in Teams. This message applies to Teams on the web and Teams for Windows and Mac desktops.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out early November 2024 (previously late October) and expect to complete by mid-November 2024 (previously mid-November).

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out mid-November 2024 (previously mid-October) and expect to complete by late January 2025 (previously mid-January). 

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout: Users do not have good visibility into the apps that are preinstalled by admins, and many apps are lost in the three-dot menu on the left side of Teams. We provide recommendations for apps that are popular in a user’s tenant. In large tenants, these recommendations are not as helpful, because they are not personalized for each user.

After this rollout, the key updates to the Teams Store in the left of Teams will be:

1. Added by your org: You can preinstall a curated collection of apps through policy settings in the Teams admin center. This collection will appear in a dedicated section of the Teams Store called Added by your org to help ensure that any app installed through the Teams admin center or Graph APIs is easily accessible users, for better visibility and usage of key tools. Learn more: Preinstall Teams apps for your org users – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn. Note: The Added by your org section will not appear if admins take no action.
2. Trending with your peers: Personalized app recommendations will appear to users in a dedicated section of the Teams Store based on the apps used by their frequent collaborators, making it easier for users to discover apps relevant to their daily workflows.

Admins can configure the collection of apps in Teams admin center > Teams apps > Setup policies > App setup policies > Global > Installed apps:

The user view of Added by your org in the Teams Store:

The user view of Trending with your peers in the Teams store.

These features are on by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Review the apps currently preinstalled through policy settings in the Teams admin center. Ensure that critical apps are installed and available for discovery in the new Added by your org collection in the Teams Store. You do not need to take any action for the Trending with your peers section in the Teams Store.

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.

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon to Microsoft Teams: A new feature to enhance the security in external collaboration. If your company allows external domains to contact your users in Teams, we will identify if an external user is impersonating a brand commonly targeted by phishing attacks during their initial contact with your user through Teams Chat. If we detect potential impersonation, we will show a high-risk alert to the user, notifying them to check for suspicious name/email and proceed with caution.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 421190.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out late October 2024 and expect to complete by late October 2024.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out mid-November 2024 and expect to complete by mid-February 2025 (previously mid-January).

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout: For organizations that have enabled Teams external access, user can receive messages from any user from external domain. Teams does not scan the sender for impersonation risks. When a user receives a chat invitation, the user can accept, or block, or preview the message. Note: Previewing the message does not put the organization at risk. 

After this rollout: If your organization enables Teams external access, we will check for potential impersonation activity when your user receives a message from an external sender for the first time. Your users will see a high-risk warning in the Accept/Block flow if we think there is potential impersonation risk, and users must preview the message before they can choose to Accept or block. If users choose to accept, we will prompt them again with potential risk before proceeding with Accept.

This security check will be done automatically. No admin configuration is required. Admins can check the audit log for impersonation attempts detected.

Teams detects an impersonation attempt in chat. In this case, the sender claims to be associated with Microsoft, but is not coming from a legitimate Microsoft domain:

When a user selects Preview their messages in the first screen, and then selects Accept, the user is alerted again to the potential for risk in this screen:

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. You may want to update any relevant documentation. We recommend that you educate your users on what the new high-risk Accept/Block screen means and remind users to proceed with caution.

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

Beginning late January 2025 (previously mid-January), after the General Availability of passkeys in the Microsoft Authenticator app, organizations with the passkey (FIDO2) authentication methods policy enabled with no key restrictions will be enabled for passkeys in the Microsoft Authenticator app in addition to FIDO2 security keys. This update aligns with the broader availability of passkeys in Entra ID, extending from device-bound passkeys on security keys to device-bound passkeys also on user devices. Users who navigate to aka.ms/MySecurityInfo will see “Passkey in Microsoft Authenticator” as an authentication method they can add. Additionally, when Conditional Access (CA) authentication strengths policy is used to enforce passkey authentication, users who don’t yet have any passkey will be prompted inline to register passkeys in Authenticator to meet the CA requirements. If an organization prefers not to enable this change for their users, they can work around it by enabling key restrictions in the passkey (FIDO2) policy. This change will not impact organizations with existing key restrictions or organizations that have not enabled the passkey (FIDO2) policy.

[When this will happen:] 

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, DoD): Rollout will happen late January 2025 (previously mid-January). 

[How this will affect your organization:]

Who will be impacted: Organizations with the passkey (FIDO2) authentication methods policy enabled with no key restrictions set.

Who will not be impacted: Organizations that do not have the passkey (FIDO2) authentication methods policy enabled and organizations that have the passkey (FIDO2) authentication methods policy enabled and have key restrictions set.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically with no admin action required. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is improving the capabilities and customization of policy alerts.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 181825.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out mid-April 2025 (previously mid-January)) and expect to complete by late April 2025 (previously late February).

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Communication Compliance is improving the capabilities and customization of policy alerts. Admins will be able to customize the alert frequency per policy as well as adjust the email alerts frequency and recipients within the policy creation wizard by navigating to the new alerts page.

This new feature is available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance provides the tools to help organizations detect business conduct and regulatory compliance violations (e.g. SEC or FINRA), such as sensitive or confidential information, harassing or threatening language, and sharing of adult content. Usernames are pseudonymized by default, role-based access controls are built in, investigators are opted in by an admin, and audit logs are in place to help ensure user-level privacy.

You can access the Communication Compliance solution in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal. 

Learn more: 

• Learn about communication compliance 

• Create and manage communication compliance alert policies | Microsoft Learn

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon to Microsoft Purview | Information Protection: Admins will be able to use auto-labeling policies to automatically label files and emails with Fingerprint based SIT (sensitive info type).

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 396173.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, admins are not able to use auto-labeling policies to automatically label files and emails with Fingerprint based SIT.

After this rollout, you can configure Fingerprint based SIT using the condition Content contains sensitive information types. Files that match Fingerprint based SIT will show in simulation.

Note: Contextual summary is not available for Fingerprint based SITs.

This change will be on by default and available for admins to configure.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. Review use cases and set up for configuring document fingerprinting.

Learn more

• About document fingerprinting | Microsoft Learn
• Automatically apply a sensitivity label in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

When creating a new Loop workspace, users will be able to choose an existing Microsoft 365 Group to manage the workspace’s lifetime, governance, and compliance, similar to SharePoint Team sites.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 422728

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Once available, when creating a new Loop workspace, users will be able to choose an existing Microsoft 365 Group to manage the workspace’s lifetime, governance, and compliance, similar to SharePoint Team sites.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There is nothing you need to do to prepare. These changes will roll to your tenant automatically.

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

Loop workspaces will soon support multiple owners, allowing end-users to promote members to owners in the membership user experience for shared Loop workspaces.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 362124

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Once available, Loop workspaces will support multiple owners, allowing end-users to promote members to owners in the membership user experience for shared Loop workspaces.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There is nothing you need to do to prepare. These changes will roll to your tenant automatically.

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

The Loop app now provides a personal workspace to all users, which is shared with Copilot Pages. This personal workspace is a user-owned SharePoint Embedded container, one per user. Governance, lifecycle management and compliance processes are similar to that user’s OneDrive. The existing Ideas workspace will begin functioning as a shared Loop workspace because it is not a user-owned container.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 422727 and 422729.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 422727: The personal workspace is a user-owned SharePoint Embedded container and follows similar governance, lifecycle management and compliance processes to the user’s OneDrive, details about departure and storage can be found here.

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 422729: The existing Ideas workspace, while positioned in the product as a personal workspace, uses the shared Loop workspace infrastructure and is not managed with the user account. As a result, with the arrival of the truly personal workspace, the existing Ideas workspace will begin functioning as a shared Loop workspace in the user’s experience.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There is nothing you need to do to prepare. These changes will roll to your tenant automatically.

If you wish to disable the creation of Loop workspaces, you can configure it using the admin policies found here and here.

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

Microsoft Loop – Common Admin Management Tasks Enabled for all new Loop workspaces, and then all existing Loop workspaces.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 421613

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Admins can manage membership, ownership, deletion, and restoration of Loop workspaces in the SharePoint Embedded admin center or PowerShell.

Changes to membership, ownership, and container deletions, and restorations made to Loop workspaces created after December 2024 will be visible in the Loop experience beginning in December 2024.

Changes to membership, ownership, and container deletions, and restorations made to Loop workspaces created before December 2024 will be visible in the Loop experience by March 2025.

You can read more about the existing admin capabilities:

• Manage SharePoint Embedded containers in SharePoint Admin Center
• SharePoint Embedded container management in PowerShell

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There is nothing you need to do to prepare. When the feature rolls out, the functionality will become available in your tenant.

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon: A control that allows users to control if web search queries are sent to Microsoft Bing when using Microsoft Copilot.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Users can disable or enable web searches with the new control, which is accessible from the three-dot overflow menu:

If the user disables web search, they will be notified that Copilot responses won’t include the latest date from the web:

If an admin has disabled web search in Copilot using either optional connected experiences or the new Allow web search in Copilot policy (available November 2024 as communicated October 2024 in MC910984 Manage web searches in Copilot separately from optional connected experiences with new policy) in the Microsoft 365 admin center, the user control will remain disabled after this rollout and users will not be able to enable web search using the control.

If web search is not disabled by the admin, users can use the control in the three-dot menu to enable or disable web search as desired.

This change is on by default and available to users.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before or after the rollout. Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Learn more about controlling web search queries in Copilot: Data, privacy, and security for web queries in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot | Microsoft Learn

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

To maintain the best performance and reliability of our service, we are updating the page size limit for the phone number retrieval API (Get-CsPhoneNumberAssignment cmdlet) to a maximum of 1,000 numbers per query.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

From January 6, 2025, any request with -Top parameter exceeding 1,000 will result in a “Bad request.” Please ensure that your Get-CsPhoneNumberAssignment requests do not surpass this limit. If the intended operation is to export your numbers, please use https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/module/teams/export-csacquiredphonenumber?view=teams-ps

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Please ensure that your Get-CsPhoneNumberAssignment requests do not surpass this limit.

Updated January 21, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

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 late January 2025 (previously early January) and expect to complete in early February 2025 (previously late January).

[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.

Updated January 23, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon to Microsoft Purview: Insider Risk Management (IRM) data including alerts, indicators and events will be available in these Microsoft Defender XDR experiences:

• Unified alert queue: IRM alerts will appear in the unified alert and incident queue in Defender XDR for comprehensive investigation and correlation.
• Advanced Hunting: IRM data will be available for advanced hunting in Defender XDR, allowing analysts to identify hidden risk patterns using KQL queries. Analytics can also create custom detections on the top of IRM data.
• Graph API: IRM data will be accessible through the Microsoft Graph API, supporting bidirectional integrations with external applications.
• Microsoft Sentinel: IRM alerts will be available in Microsoft Sentinel through the XDR-Sentinel connector, providing richer metadata.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 422730.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out mid-January 2025 and expect to complete by end of January 2025.

General Availability (WW, GCC, GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out late June 2025 (previously early May) and expect to complete by mid-July 2025 (previously mid-May).

[How this will affect your organization:]

Enable this feature by turning on Share data with other security solutions in the IRM global settings.

Only users with Insider risk analysis or investigation roles in the Microsoft Purview portal can access IRM data in Defender XDR.

To access alerts, incidents, and events from Defender XDR via API, you need to provision apps with the necessary permissions. IRM data is accessible via Microsoft Security Graph APIs, allowing for reading and updating alert or incident statuses. Permissions are set at the application level, without solution-specific scoping. Any existing apps pulling data from these APIs will also access IRM data. So, if you integrate XDR alerts into external ticketing systems, IRM alerts will show up, unless you specifically filter out the alerts.

IRM alerts will appear in Sentinel if your tenant has the Defender XDR connector enabled in Microsoft Sentinel.

In Defender XDR, IRM data is not pseudonymized to allow effective correlation of IRM alerts with alerts from other solutions within the platform, such as Defender for Endpoint and Defender for Cloud apps.

These changes will be available by default for admins to configure in IRM global settings.

Admins will be able to view Insider Risk Management alerts in Defender XDR:

Harness the power of Advanced Hunting queries with two new tables that contain Insider Risk Management data: DataSecurityBehaviors and DataSecurityEvents. In this query, 54 confidential files were exfiltrated through mail.google.com by 2 unique users:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

• Opt-in to data sharing settings in IRM global settings page.
• Assign necessary permissions to analysts
• Review existing apps accessing Defender XDR data through Graph APIs.
• If your organization is using Microsoft Defender XDR connector, please review the list of users who will gain access to this data through Sentinel.

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. Review your current configuration in IRM global settings to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your admins about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Updated January 23, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

Administrators and security operators who are using third-party report message solutions in Microsoft Outlook to allow their users to report suspicious messages (for example, Knowbe4, Hoxhunt, Cofense, Proofpoint add-ins, and so on) can now configure Defender for Office 365 to automatically send these messages to Microsoft for analysis.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 406167.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

You must configure this setting if you want the benefit of sending third-party reported messages to Microsoft.

To enable this setting:

1. Go to User reported settings in the Microsoft Defender portal, select Monitor reported messages in Outlook, and then select Use a non-Microsoft add-in button.
2. In the Reported message destination section, select Microsoft and my reporting mailbox, and then provide the email address of the internal Exchange Online mailbox where user-reported messages by the third-party add-ins are being routed to. If the third-party vendor follows the guidance for message submissions format, Defender for Office 365 will submit these messages automatically to Microsoft for analysis.
3.  The result from Microsoft after analysis is shown on the User reported page in the Defender portal.

For more details about how Microsoft handles user-reported suspicious messages, see Report suspicious email messages to Microsoft.

Alerts are automatically generated for user reported messages in Defender for Office 365. If you have Defender for Office 365 Plan 2, Automated investigation and response (AIR) is also automatically triggered for user reported phishing messages. Both alerts and their investigations are automatically correlated to Defender XDR Incidents, which helps SOC teams with automation to triage, investigate, and respond. Submitting these messages to Microsoft for analysis provides a response of this analysis to security analysts and also helps improve Defender for Office 365 filters.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

If your user reporting settings are already set to Use a non-Microsoft add-in button and Microsoft and my reporting mailbox, you don’t need to do anything to benefit from this change. However, if the destination is My reporting mailbox only, you need to change the destination to Microsoft and my reporting mailbox to benefit from this change. 

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Starting in mid-January 2025, Microsoft Copilot in Edge will introduce support for page summarization and contextual queries to the Work tab for Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat. With this feature, users can ask Copilot contextual queries such as “summarize this page.” This feature will also include contextual prompt suggestions to help users ask relevant questions about open pages in Edge. Page summarization and contextual prompt suggestions will be accessible for users when using Copilot through the Edge side pane.

A Microsoft 365 Copilot license is required to use this feature.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 468884.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

After this rollout, Copilot may have access to a user’s page context when a user sends contextual prompts to Copilot in Edge in the side pane when a webpage or PDF is open.

The page summarization feature will be available by default when it rolls out in late-January. It can also be configured by admins.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

The existing EdgeEntraCopilotPageContext policy is available now for you to manage whether your users have access to page context while using Copilot in Edge across Copilot Business Chat and Microsoft Copilot with enterprise data protection. Before this rollout, the policy only applied to the Web tab of Business Chat and to Copilot with enterprise data protection. After this rollout, the EdgeEntraCopilotPageContext policy will include the Work tab of Business Chat. If the policy is not configured, users can enable or disable Copilot’s access to page context in their Copilot settings.

If you prefer to disable Copilot Chat for your tenant, review these instructions in Manage Copilot | Microsoft Learn.

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date. Review your current configuration to determine the impact on your organization. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Learn more

• The section called What’s the difference between Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot? in Overview of Copilot | Microsoft Learn
• Enterprise data protection in Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot | Microsoft Learn

Updated January 23, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon to Microsoft Teams: Users will be able to set their preference for how their cloud-hosted Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel and Microsoft PowerPoint files should open when they select links for these files from Teams. The new setting (open in a browser, desktop app, or directly in Teams) will extend to links selected in other Microsoft365 apps, starting with classic Microsoft Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, for greater consistency across apps.

This message applies to Teams for Windows desktop.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 471000.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out early March 2025 (previously late February) and expect to complete by mid-March 2025 (previously early March).

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

After this rollout, user can set the file open preference in Teams by following instructions in Open file links directly in Microsoft 365 desktop apps from Teams and classic Outlook – Microsoft Support. Users will be still able to set separate file open preferences for Teams only.

File open preference will apply to Word, Excel and PowerPoint links selected from Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams for Windows desktop, and classic Outlook.

This change will be available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

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

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

Before this rollout, for a Microsoft Teams town hall or webinar, the transcription behavior respects the current Teams meeting transcription policies. After this rollout, new transcription policies will be available for town halls and webinars to allow finer control over transcriptions. The policies may be changed in the Teams admin center or with Microsoft PowerShell commands. This message applies to Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for the web, and Teams for iOS/Android.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 473886.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

These new transcription policies for webinars and town halls will determine whether transcription is allowed for a town hall or webinar. Town halls and webinars will no longer respect the Teams Meeting transcription policies.

The new policies will be available by default for admins to configure.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Before the rollout, we encourage you to use PowerShell commands to update the default values of the transcription policies for webinars and town halls. After the rollout, you can use Teams admin center or PowerShell commands to update the values.

Examples of PowerShell commands to set the town hall or webinar policy:

Set-CsTeamsEventsPolicy -Identity Global -TranscriptionForTownhall Enabled

Set-CsTeamsEventsPolicy -Identity Global -TranscriptionForWebinar Enabled

Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Learn more: New-CsTeamsEventsPolicy (MicrosoftTeamsPowerShell) | Microsoft Learn

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon to Microsoft Teams: New admin policies in the Teams admin center and Microsoft PowerShell that govern the recording behavior for town halls and webinars. Before this rollout, the same policies control the recording behavior for town halls, webinars, and meetings. After this rollout, separate recording policies for town halls and webinars will be available to more finely control event behavior. This message applies to Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for the web, and Teams for iOS/Android.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 473887.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

This change will be available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Before the rollout, we encourage you to use PowerShell commands to update the default values of the recording policies for webinars and town halls. After the rollout, you can use Teams admin center or PowerShell commands to update the values.

Examples of PowerShell commands to set the town hall or webinar recording policy:

Set-CsTeamsEventsPolicy -Identity Global -RecordingForTownhall Enabled

Set-CsTeamsEventsPolicy -Identity Global -RecordingForWebinar Enabled

Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

Learn more: New-CsTeamsEventsPolicy (MicrosoftTeamsPowerShell) | Microsoft Learn

Updated January 24, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

We are renaming the Viva Connections app to Connections. This change is intended to ensure the app name fits better within Microsoft Teams, preventing it from being truncated.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

If you have already customized the Viva Connections app name in the Microsoft Teams app store, your customizations will remain unchanged.

This update is available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically with no admin action required. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

Updated January 23, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

We are excited to announce the public release of Direct Routing (DR) Inventory for all Microsoft Teams Phone customers. This feature allows you to manage both assigned and unassigned DR phone numbers within Microsoft Teams Phone Number management. It simplifies managing and assigning DR phone numbers via Teams PowerShell cmdlet. The feature is also current in preview in Teams Admin Center and will be released to all customers in mid-February 2025. 

This new feature introduces a change in behavior for unassigned Direct Routing phone numbers in Teams Phone Number management. When unassigned, a Direct Routing phone number will no longer be removed from the Teams telephone number management storage. If for any reason you do not wish to keep the Direct Routing phone numbers in Microsoft’s Teams telephone number management storage, please use New-CsOnlineTelephoneNumberReleaseOrder to release the unassigned Direct Routing phone numbers.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): We have already rolled out the feature and available for use via Teams PowerShell cmdlets. 

[How this will affect your organization:]

When unassigned, a Direct Routing phone number will no longer be removed from the Teams telephone number management storage. If for any reason you do not wish to keep the Direct Routing phone numbers in Microsoft’s Teams telephone number management storage, please use New-CsOnlineTelephoneNumberReleaseOrder to release the unassigned Direct Routing phone numbers.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

No action required. Please review the details of this feature in our public documentation. 

Detailed instructions on how to use these cmdlets are provided in New-CsOnlineDirectRoutingTelephoneNumberUploadOrder, New-CsOnlineTelephoneNumberReleaseOrder, and Get-CsOnlineTelephoneNumberOrder

The Apps area within the Microsoft Intune admin center will have an updated look, similar to the Devices area, that provides a more consistent user interface (UI) and an improved navigation structure. This update is expected to start in early February 2025 and enabled for all admins by the end of the month.

[How this will affect your organization:]

This is an admin center UI update only. The updated Apps area includes:

• Scenario-focused navigation structure that brings monitoring in line with management workflows.
• Updated navigation naming to align with the Devices area, such as App protection polices will become Protection.
• A dedicated list of monitoring reports and key metrics and reports on the overview page.
• Platform specific navigation pivots that show menu items applicable to that platform.
• Consistency across list views to search, sort, and filter data.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

No action is required, only awareness.

Coming soon from Microsoft Purview: If you have enabled full file evidence collection, Data Loss Prevention can copy a file that matches a DLP policy from onboarded macOS devices to a Microsoft Azure storage account.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 476098.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out late February 2025 and expect to complete by late March 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out early April 2025 and expect to complete by early May 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, if you enable full file evidence collection in Data Loss Prevention, a file that matches a DLP policy from onboarded macOS devices will not upload to a Microsoft Azure storage account.

In Data Loss Prevention, you can configure Setup evidence collection for file activities on devices to enable full file evidence collection:

This change will be available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before or after the rollout. If you have already enabled Full file evidence collection, macOS devices protected by endpoint DLP will automatically upload files after this rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

There is no change required to your existing DLP policies as they will automatically include macOS devices in your organization after this rollout.

Learn more: Learn about collecting files that match DLP policies from devices | Microsoft Learn for more details on evidence collection.

Coming soon from Microsoft Purview Endpoint Data Loss Prevention: Support for restricting users from pasting sensitive content into a web browser on macOS devices using Microsoft Edge, Safari, Chrome or Firefox.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 476073.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out late February 2025 and expect to complete by late March 2025.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out early April 2025 and expect to complete by early May 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, if an organization has configured DLP policies to restrict users from pasting sensitive content to browsers, the restriction only applies on Windows devices.

After this rollout, if an organization has configured DLP policies to restrict users from pasting sensitive content to browsers, the policies will automatically apply to macOS devices also.

Browser messages for users. Left: Microsoft Edge. Right: All other browsers:

This change will be available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

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

There is no change required to your existing DLP policies as they will automatically include macOS devices in your organization.

Learn more: Learn about Endpoint data loss prevention | Microsoft Learn for the full list of protections on macOS devices.

We are pleased to inform you that we will roll out two improvements to enhance compliance and security for voicemail messages in Microsoft Exchange.

This change is related to three products: Microsoft Teams calls, Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, and Microsoft Skype for Business calls. Results will be visible in Outlook/Exchange email messages.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): We began rolling out early December 2024 and expect to complete by late January 2025.

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

1. The From: field of voicemail email messages will be updated to comply with the latest RFC standard, RFC 6854: Update to Internet Message Format to Allow Group Syntax in the From: and Sender Header Fields. According to this compliance standard, the Internet message format must always include an address in the From header field.

Example:

• Before this rollout: +44 28 7584 5695 <442875845695>
• After this rollout: +44 28 7584 5695 (Unverified) <[email protected]>

2. To strengthen trust and security in voicemails received from external PSTN calls and from federated tenants, Unverified and External tags will always be added to the From field of voicemail messages in the mailbox.

Note: This rollout applies to voicemail messages in Microsoft Exchange received from external PSTN calls and calls from federated tenants.

Example of the From field in voicemail message if PSTN caller was not found in Entra ID contacts:

• Before this rollout: +44 28 7584 5695
• After this rollout: +44 28 7584 5695 (Unverified)

Example of the From field in voicemail message if PSTN caller was found in Entra ID contacts:

• Before this rollout: John Smith
• After this rollout: John Smith (External)

Example of the From field in voicemail message for calls from federated tenant:

• Before this rollout: John Smith
• After this rollout: John Smith (External)

Example of the From field in voicemail message for anonymous Skype calls:

• Before this rollout: Anonymous
• After this rollout: Anonymous (Unverified)

Note: Both improvements will always 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 or after the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update relevant documentation.

• June 28, 2024: The deprecation plan was announced for WSUS driver synchronization. 
• April 18, 2025: The next stage of the deprecation begins. You’ll no longer be able to import drivers into WSUS from the Microsoft Update catalog.  

• Read the original deprecation announcement at Deprecation of WSUS driver synchronization. 
• Learn about Device Driver Packages as an available solution for on-premises contexts.  
• Learn about Windows driver update management in Microsoft Intune. 
• Learn about programmatic controls for drivers and firmware updates in Windows Autopatch.