Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter and blogs updates from 06-02-2025

Updated February 5, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. 

Please note that customers who are interested in joining the preview must opt-in. To join the preview, customers should file a support ticket requesting to join the Scheduled prompts preview. Thank you for your feedback.

Coming soon for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365: A new Scheduled prompts feature that allows users to automate Copilot prompts to run at set times and frequencies in Copilot in Microsoft Teams, Office.com/chat, and Microsoft Outlook for the web and Desktop. A Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 license and a Standard Microsoft Power Automate license are required to use this feature. To be eligible, customers must also have the Optional Connected Experience (OCE) admin toggle enabled, and configure their DLP policies to allow the Copilot for Microsoft 365 connector in their default PowerPlatform environment.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 401124.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out mid-December 2024 (previously mid-November) and expect to complete by late December 2024 (previously late November).

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout: Users are unable to schedule Copilot for Microsoft 365 prompts to run at a specific time and frequency.

After the rollout: Users can find the Scheduled prompts feature by hovering over a prompt they have submitted to Copilot or by clicking on the Schedule prompts button in the Copilot response footer (references images below). After configuring their Scheduled prompt, when a user selects the Save and activate button to confirm the scheduled prompt, a user’s prompt information will be sent to the Power Automate and Power Platform system, and the Power Automate terms of service and privacy policy apply:

Schedule prompt entry points

Schedule prompt Creation dialog

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Managing the Scheduled prompts feature as an admin: To continue having the Scheduled prompts feature available in your organization, no action is required after completing the opt-in process. The feature is automatically included as part of the Optional Connected Experiences admin setting, which is on by default.

Admins can access the Optional connected experiences setting at config.office.com

If you prefer not to have this feature available to your organization, you can file a customer support ticket requesting to exit the preview program or disable the optional connected experiences setting at config.office.com. For more information: Admin controls for optional connected experiences. If you turn off the Optional connected experiences setting, this action will prevent anyone in your organization from seeing the Scheduled prompts feature in Copilot. If you choose to make these optional connected experiences available to your users, your users will also have the option to turn them by going to the privacy settings dialog box. 

To prevent exposing organizational data, you should also create a data policy in the Power Platform admin center. Creating a data policy in the center allows administrators to control access to these connectors in various ways to help reduce risk in your organization. Learn more here: Data policies – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn

If you disable this feature after someone in your organization has already used the feature:

• Users will no longer be able to manage previously scheduled prompts.
• Sessions for previously run scheduled prompts will continue to exist.
• Users will no longer see the Scheduled prompts feature or the prompt management pane.

Relevant articles

• Data, Privacy, and Security for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn
• Security in Microsoft Power Platform – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
• Admin controls for optional connected experiences in Overview of optional connected experiences in Office – Deploy Office | Microsoft Learn

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

To learn more about Microsoft’s own review of this product with its works councils, please consider reading: https://aka.ms/Copilot/MSWorksCouncilsArticle 

Updated February 5, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon for Microsoft Viva Insights: Users will be able to request delegate access from a manager. This message applies to the Viva app on the web and the Viva Insights app in Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, Teams on the web, and Teams for iOS/Android.

Before this rollout, Insights managers can assign delegate access to members of their organization. After this rollout, if a manager accepts the delegate access request, the requestor will have the same view of organizational insights as the manager does.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 464174

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out early January 2025 (previously early December) and expect to complete by late January 2025 (previously late December)

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

[What you need to do to prepare:]

No admin action is needed to set up this feature, which will be on by default.

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

Learn more: Delegate access to organizational insights and Copilot Dashboard | Microsoft Learn

Updated February 5, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. 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 early February 2025 (previously late 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 February 5, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon to Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management (IRM): We have enhanced these existing Microsoft Office 365 indicators:

• Downgrading sensitivity labels applied to SharePoint files
• Removing sensitivity labels from SharePoint files

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 466742.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:] Before this rollout, IRM only captures sensitivity label changes on the Microsoft SharePoint web app.

After this rollout, IRM will capture sensitivity label changes (downgrade or remove) when performed on Microsoft OneDrive, Microsoft Azure Information Protection, or endpoints (SharePoint files opened in an Office app or any sensitivity label change on the local files on a user’s device). Also, we will rename the indicators:

• Downgrading sensitivity labels applied to SharePoint files will become Downgrading sensitivity labels applied to files
• Removing sensitivity labels from SharePoint files will become Removing sensitivity labels from files

In Activity explorer, events that occurred before this rollout for these indicators will continue to show Labels of sensitive files on SharePoint downgraded or Label of sensitive files removed on SharePoint. Events that occur after the rollout will be shown as Labels of sensitive files downgraded or Labels of sensitive files removed.

No action is needed to enable these features. This feature will be on by default.

The renamed indicators in the IRM policy wizard:

Example of a new event for Downgrading sensitivity labels applied to files as shown in Activity explorer:

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

Microsoft Purview Insider Risk Management correlates various signals to identify potential malicious or inadvertent insider risks, such as IP theft, data leakage and security violations. Insider Risk Management enables customers to create policies based on their own internal policies, governance and organizational requirements. Built with privacy by design, users are pseudonymized by default, and role-based access controls and audit logs are in place to help ensure user-level privacy.

Updated February 5, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

We are pleased to announce the general availability of data export for Microsoft Viva Glint and Microsoft Viva Insights within the Microsoft Advanced Insights application. Analysts can now use the existing Glint and organizational insights Power BI template to run queries, and, with this new functionality, results can be downloaded as a CSV file. The existing feature allows users to view results as an embedded Power BI.

Please note that CSV downloads will only be available for surveys with raw data export enabled by the Glint admin during the survey setup. For more details, please see this information about confidentiality.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 423485.

[When will this happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): This feature will roll out at the end of February 2025 (previously January).

[How will this affect your organization:]

Analysts will have the ability to download the query results from the Glint and organizational insights Power BI template for surveys that have raw data export enabled by the Glint admin at the time of the survey setup. Learn more here.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

• Review and assess the impact of sending survey data from Viva Glint to Viva Insights for your organization. Learn more: Integrate Viva Glint and Viva Insights to maximize data insight.
• Consider reviewing with your works council and updating your training and documentation as appropriate.
• Learn more about the Glint and organizational insights Power BI template: Glint and organizational insights report.

Updated February 5, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Microsoft Copilot in SharePoint’s page creation feature leverages large language models (LLMs), data in Microsoft Graph, and best practices to help users create engaging web pages. This feature is available to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 418126.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before rollout: The Page with Copilot menu option does not appear in SharePoint’s +New menu.

After rollout: Users with Microsoft 365 Copilot licenses will see the Page with Copilot menu option in SharePoint’s +New menu, allowing them to create page content.

With Copilot in SharePoint’s page creation, users can leverage LLMs, Microsoft Graph data, and templates, as well as existing documents, to generate high-quality page content. Users can also use prompts with integrated design ideas. This feature upholds enterprise data security and privacy commitments.

Feature highlights

Template-based page creation with grounding data: Users can use a prompt box to create pages based on templates (and specify their own data sources):

Prompt for design ideas integration: Users can enter a prompt to create pages with integrated design ideas:

Licensing and control

This feature is part of the Microsoft 365 Copilot suite and is enabled by default for licensed users. Admins can disable the feature by deselecting the Microsoft 365 Copilot for SharePoint service plan in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

[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 inform users and update any internal documentation as needed.

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

Updated February 5, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

The ability to distinguish between internal and external recipients is crucial for maintaining secure and efficient communication. This update will improve offline accuracy and overall performance of the External Recipients MailTips feature on Microsoft Outlook for iOS and Android.

This post is associated with MC834102 External recipients MailTip offline behavior update for Microsoft Outlook for iOS and Android (published July 2024, updated to cancel November 2024).

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

After this rollout, organizations that have enabled External Recipient MailTips feature will benefit from the client retrieving and caching internal domain information from the Microsoft Exchange Server. This improves accuracy for users who are offline or have unreliable internet connections and overall feature performance.

Before this rollout, Outlook for iOS and Android calls the MailTips service for an External Recipient determination when users add recipients to an email. When the user is offline, we are unable to reach the MailTips service, so domain comparison is used.

This change is on by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This change will happen automatically by the specified date. No admin action is required. Please notify your users about this change and update relevant documentation.

Learn more: MailTips in Exchange Online | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)

Updated February 5, 2025: After further review we have decided not to proceed with this change at this time. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Copilot will show current sensitivity label settings to users for any Microsoft 365 file used to ground a prompt in Microsoft 365 Copilot Business Chat web mode and Microsoft Copilot with enterprise data protection web grounding chat. These are the same sensitivity settings displayed across Microsoft 365 products like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Outlook, etc.

Copilot will display sensitivity label shields at the bottom of Copilot responses with the file referenced file. This will help users identify the level of sensitivity classification for the content included in the response from the file.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 469497

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide) We will communicate via Message center when we are ready to proceed.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Starting early January, Microsoft 365 Copilot users and Microsoft Copilot users logged in with their Entra account will start seeing the sensitivity labels in the response references anytime they use a Microsoft 365 file to ground their prompt.    

[What you need to do to prepare:]

No action is required. Visit Get started with sensitivity labels | Microsoft Learn to learn more about how you can setup and manage sensitivity labels for your organization.

Learn more here: Learn about sensitivity labels | Microsoft Learn

Updated February 5, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon for Microsoft Viva Engage: Users will have a new way to engage with the Viva Engage app in Microsoft Teams through new notifications in the Teams Activity feed. This message applies to Teams for the web, Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, and Teams for iOS/Android.

Updated February 5, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

After this rollout, users with the Engage app installed can be notified in Teams for replies and reactions to their community posts. This new feature helps large organizations stay connected and informed of news, updates, and safety while in Microsoft Teams.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 474126.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

This feature will be available by default and the notifications will be on by default.

After this rollout, users can change notification settings in Teams for desktop or the web: Go to Activity on the left side of Teams, select the gear icon, and change settings in the Viva Engage section. In Teams for iOS/Android, users can turn notifications on or off for all apps from the notifications settings page. 

User documentation: Manage notifications in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Support

[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.

Share this news with users at your organization and consider pinning Engage next to Chats and Teams. Ensure your corporate communications team is aware of this additional channel of reaching users across the organization.

You may want to update any relevant documentation.

Updated February 5, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. 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 early February 2025 (previously late 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 February 5, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon to Microsoft SharePoint: The new Preview mode can be used to understand how Pages and News posts will appear on different device types when viewed by an audience.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 473452.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

After this rollout, a Preview button will display in the command bar while users are editing Pages and News posts in SharePoint. After selecting Preview, users can see what the page will look like in view mode for the audience. When previewing Pages, users can navigate between Desktop and Mobile device types. When previewing News posts, users can also choose to view the email version as Desktop or Mobile device types.

This change will be available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

You may want to notify users, update your user training, and prepare your help desk.

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

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

Note: If your organization does not use the data upload feature in the Microsoft Viva Insights advanced insights app, please disregard this message.

What is changing?

Viva Insights will retire its organizational data upload feature in the advanced insights app (Analyst Workbench) and move it to Microsoft 365 admin center. Consequently, Viva Insights tenants will be migrated to use the data upload feature through the Microsoft 365 admin center (MAC). We’ve placed Viva Insights tenants in one of three waves. If you received this message, you’re in Wave 1. For you, the move to the MAC for organizational data upload starts March 5, 2025.

After your tenant is migrated, your global admin will upload and manage all organizational data imports in the MAC, and the global admin permission will be required to upload data.

Why we are retiring this feature in Viva Insights

We are removing the organizational data upload feature in Viva Insights to streamline and enhance our data management processes. This change is part of our ongoing effort to provide a more integrated and efficient experience for our customers. By moving to MODIS (Microsoft Organizational Data Ingestion System), we aim to centralize data ingestion, ensuring that organizational data is uploaded once and seamlessly powers both Microsoft Viva Suite and Microsoft 365 experiences. This transition will address customer pain points related to data freshness and automation, ultimately improving the overall user experience.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Roles and permissions

• Global administrator: The only fully permissioned role for uploading organizational data in Viva Insights in the Microsoft 365 admin center is global admin. You may choose to assign the global admin role to your Viva Insights admins.
• Data source admins: These admins usually manage the data source or human capital management (HCM) systems for your organization. After your tenant is moved to uploading data via admin center, the data source admins must work with the global admin and Viva Insights admin to ensure successful data uploads through the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Uploading data: After your tenant is migrated, your global admin will need to upload organizational data for Viva Insights through the MAC.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

1. Viva Insights admin must identify their global admin and data source admin and inform them of this change.
2. Get familiar with the new platform for importing organizational data: Learn more: Organizational Data in Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn
3. Review and update your internal documentation and training materials to reflect the new data upload process.
4. As a Viva Insights admin, get the global admin role assigned to your profile, if feasible.
5. Ensure that the user(s) tasked with uploading organizational data in the MAC is/are assigned the global admin role before March 5, 2025.

To find your current global admin, try using Microsoft Copilot for Work, with this prompt: Which team or person manages our Microsoft 365 admin center?

Note: If your organization does not support iOS users, you can ignore this message.

Coming soon to Microsoft Outlook for iOS: A new Open the Email Above setting to automatically open the message above the current one in the message list after performing actions like moving or deleting the current message.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 477362.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

After this rollout, users can find the new setting in Outlook at Settings > Mail > Email Auto-advance > Open the Email Above.

We will also remove the Move to the Next Email setting.

Before the rollout:

• Go back to the Inbox
• Move to the Next Email

After the rollout:

• Go Back to the Message List
• Open the Email Below
• Open the Email Above

[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: Email Auto-Advance Setting – Microsoft Support

In Microsoft Viva learning, users can archive learning objects shown in the My Learning > In-progress section and in the My Learning > Recommendations section of their courses. Users can access the Archive button under the vertical ellipsis (…) on the course tile.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Learner personas will be able to see a new overlay to archive their In-progress and Recommendations courses. Learners can unarchive the courses to show them back in the respective tabs. No data will be deleted.

This feature 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.

Before this rollout, users accessed the Delegate management feature for Microsoft Viva Engage on the web and Viva Engage in Microsoft Teams from different locations: The gear icon in Viva Engage on the web and the three-dot overflow menu in Teams. After this rollout, users can access the Delegate management feature in Viva Engage on the web from the three-dot overflow menu next to their profile picture, just like they do in Viva Engage in Teams for Windows and Mac desktops.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide): Available now (since mid-January 2025).

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, users accessed the Manage delegate settings feature from the gear icon in Viva Engage for the web:

After this rollout, users can access Delegate management from the three-dot menu next to their profile photo in Viva Engage for the web, like they do in Viva Engage in Teams for Windows and Mac desktops:

This change is available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout happened 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.

Learn more: Delegation in Viva Engage – Microsoft Support

Coming soon to new Microsoft Outlook for Windows desktop and Microsoft Outlook for the web: Users can categorize individual emails in conversation view to enhance organization and tracking.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 416450.

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We began rolling out early January 2025 and expect to complete by late February 2025.

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

To use the conversation view, users can go to the Outlook ribbon and select View > Messages > Conversation > Group into conversations

To categorize an individual email, a user must select the Group into conversations option. Then, in the list of emails, expand a conversation and right-click the individual email to be categorized, select the Categorize option, and choose the category (or categories). The selected category will display in the individual email and in the email header and the reading pane.

Deleting a category from the message header or from the reading pane will remove the category applied to any individual emails in that conversation.

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.

Learn more: Use categories in Outlook – Microsoft Support

#newoutlookforwindows

• Launch Access
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• Read Access table
• Run Access query
• Run Access macro