Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter and blogs updates from 11-02-2025

Updated February 10, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

We are changing how you enable or disable the new Microsoft Outlook for Windows and Microsoft Outlook for the web.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

We’re changing the CASMailbox –OWAEnabled parameter that enables or disables access to user mailboxes using Outlook for the web (formerly known as Outlook Web App or OWA) to block only Outlook for the web and to not affect the behavior of new Outlook for Windows.

You can manage new Outlook for Windows with the CASMailbox-OneWinNativeOutlookEnabled policy.

You are receiving this message because our reporting indicates one or more users in your organization may be using the New Outlook for Windows.

Note: We will not change any existing value for the settings, but we will change which setting controls if the new Outlook for Windows is allowed for the user. Before this rollout, both CASMailbox-OWAEnabled and CASMailboxOneWinNativeOutlookEnabled policies are checked. After this rollout, we will remove the check for CASMailbox-OWAEnabled so you can have the chance to enable new Outlook and still disable Outlook for the web if desired.

[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.

After this change takes effect, please confirm the CASMailbox OneWinNativeOutlookEnabled policy state for each mailbox. The default value is Enabled.

Learn more

• Enable or disable Outlook on the web access to mailboxes in Exchange Server | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)
• Enable or disable access to the new Outlook for Windows | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)

#newoutlookforwindows

Updated February 10, 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 mid-February 2025 (previously early February).

[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 10, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

As part of the convergence of both Microsoft Defender for Identity and Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps into Microsoft Defender XDR services, we are continuing to move away from legacy experiences and enhancing the unified experiences.

Therefore, we will gradually retire Defender for Identity’s Active Directory and alerts data from Defender for Cloud Apps dedicated experiences. All data, as well as all functionality of the affected experiences, remain available through Microsoft Defender XDR unified experiences, where we will continue to invest our development resources.

[When this will happen:] 

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, DoD): This retirement will begin rolling out in late January 2025 and is expected to complete in early May 2025 (previously early March 2025).

[How this will affect your organization:]

You are receiving this message because the following changes may affect your organization:

Active directory activities coming from Defender for Identity will no longer be available in Defender for Cloud Apps activity logs. Consequently, Defender for Cloud Apps activity policies will cease from triggering based on Active Directory data.

All Active Directory activities data remains available through Advanced Hunting, in the following tables:

• IdentityLogonEvents
• IdentityDirectoryEvents
• IdentityQueryEvents

To learn more about Advanced Hunting and the Data Schema, visit Proactively hunt for threats with advanced hunting in Microsoft Defender and Understand the advanced hunting schema.

New Active Directory activities, as well as Defender for Identity’s alerts data, will no longer be available through Defender for Cloud Apps Activities API, Alerts API, or dedicated SIEM agents.

All activities and alerts data remains available through Defender XDR Streaming API and Event Hubs.

Learn more about Streaming API.

For more information about how to integrate your SIEM tools with Microsoft Defender XDR, visit Ingesting streaming event data via Event Hubs.

The Identities page under ‘Assets’ in the XDR portal will be updated to better support the new experiences. The page will be divided into two distinct tabs: First-party identities and Third-party accounts. In the User page, “View related activity” action will no longer be available. To learn more about Defender for Identity’s experiences in the XDR portal, visit Microsoft Defender for Identity in the Microsoft Defender portal.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

To ensure a seamless experience, create new custom detections for any activity policies based on active directory data in Advanced Hunting. To learn more about how to create custom detections, visit Create and manage custom detections rules. Suggested queries related to Active Directory activities are available through the portal under Advanced Hunting > Community Queries. For more information, see Use shared queries in Advanced Hunting.

If you are still using Defender for Cloud Apps dedicated API and SIEM agents to consume Defender for Identity activities or alerts, make sure to update your resources according to the above information.

Updated February 10, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

The Multi-pin Conversations Carousel is now available for Microsoft Viva Engage.

The behavior of single pin remains the same; two or more pins will enable the carousel. Posts will appear in the order of the most recently pinned post first. Pinned conversations will remain in the feed with a thumbtack icon on the corner to denote that it is a pinned conversation.

 [When this will happen:] 

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Community admins can now pin up to six posts at the top of the community feed. When you pin two or more posts, the carousel feature will automatically activate, enhancing visibility and engagement.

This new feature 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.

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