Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter and blogs updates from 14-02-2025

We are excited to announce a new user interface (UI) refresh for the Microsoft 365 Public Roadmap. This update is designed to enhance your experience by aligning the look and feel with the recently refreshed Azure Update site. This initiative is driven by valuable feedback from our customers, aiming to deliver cohesive and modern user experience across our platforms.

The new interface maintains the same usability features you are accustomed to, ensuring a seamless transition without significant changes to how you navigate the roadmap. However, the backend has been upgraded to be produced from our Change Communication engine. This upgrade lays the groundwork for future enhancements, providing us with the flexibility to introduce new features and improvements over time.

[When this will happen:]

The new UI will light up on Thursday February 13th, 2025.  The legacy API will remain in place until March 15th, 2025.  

[How this will affect your organization:]

For customers who utilize the Microsoft 365 Public Roadmap public API in automation to assist with planning, please note the upcoming change to the API endpoint. The new endpoint link will be prominently displayed on a banner on the Public Roadmap site for 30 days, facilitating a smooth transition to the updated API. This proactive measure ensures that you have the necessary information and time to make the required adjustments without disruption to your workflows

[What you need to do to prepare:]

If you are consuming the Roadmap API, please redirect your automation to https://www.microsoft.com/releasecommunications/api/v1/m365 there is no change to the schema.

We are excited to announce that we will add the Microsoft 365 Copilot in Viva Glint feature to Feature Access Management in Viva. This will allow global admins and AI admins to control the rollout and availability of Copilot in Viva Glint.

Copilot in Viva Glint is enabled for all users in Viva Feature Access Management by default. If users have access at the Feature Access Management in Viva level, you will also need to grant access in the Viva Glint product as it is disabled for all users by default in Viva Glint.

Subscription plans of Viva suite or Viva Glint are required for using Microsoft Viva Glint.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 478655.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Microsoft 365 global admins and AI admins can use the Copilot page in the Microsoft 265 admin center Settings, the Feature Access Management page in Viva, the Viva Glint page in the Microsoft 365 admin center, or Microsoft PowerShell cmdlets to create granular policies and access policies for Copilot in Viva Glint:

• Tenant policy: Automatically includes all users in the tenant.
• Group/user-level policy: Admins can choose individual users/groups that should be part of the access policy.
• Admins can use both tenant and group policies for restricting or enabling access to both Copilot and Summarization.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

As a global admin:

• If you wish to leave Copilot in Viva Glint enabled for all users in your organization, no action is needed.
• If you choose to limit the availability of Copilot in Viva Glint to certain users/groups in your organization, create group/user policies through Feature Access Management in Viva to turn off Copilot in Viva Glint by tenant, group, or user.
• If you choose to disable Copilot in Viva Glint for your entire tenant, you can create a separate tenant policy in Feature Access Management in Viva to turn off the feature.

Learn more about Feature Access Management in Viva and Copilot in Viva Glint:

• Microsoft Viva – Feature access management | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)
• Microsoft Glint – Introduction to Microsoft 365 Copilot in Viva Glint | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)
• Microsoft Glint – Administrator enablement for Microsoft 365 Copilot in Viva Glint | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)

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 users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

The Text web part in SharePoint Online allows users to add normal text, tables, and paragraphs to a SharePoint site page. It provides various formatting options such as bullets, styles, indentations, links, and highlighting. To use the Text web part, go to edit mode, select the circled plus (+) icon, choose Text from the web part toolbox, and enter your desired text in the Text field.

In the updated Text web part, similar themed features are grouped together for better customer experience and usability.

The updated text web part will be available in SharePoint and Viva Amplify.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 394278.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, DoD): This feature update rolled out early February 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Users will see a new UI for the Text web part with existing controls and some new ones. The Text web part will automatically adjust by expanding or compressing based on the section layout used. When compressed, the text options will move into the overflow (…) button. Within this web part, users can make all text customizations that are already available like styles, font size, alignment, list, tables, and many more. This web part will also host any text enhancements that may be added in the future.

For more information, see Add text, tables, and images to your page with the Text web part.

[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 13, 2025: Migration has now started.

As outlined in MC677236 (July 2024), Azure to OneDrive migration of existing Whiteboards has now started and will reach your tenant (if you haven’t received it already) in the coming months, before June 2025. Complete details can be found in this support article: Migration of Whiteboards from Azure to OneDrive – Microsoft Support.

Action for admins: The migration affects only Microsoft Azure-based Whiteboards. If your tenant does not have any Azure Whiteboards, this migration does not impact you. Check if your tenant has Azure Whiteboards using this PowerShell cmdlet: – Get-WhiteboardsForTenant

Action item for users: Until the migration completes. When your tenant receives the migration code, users can trigger a migration by starting a Whiteboard session from a web browser by simply going to https://whiteboard.microsoft.com/ or by using a Whiteboard in their Teams meetings.

Whiteboard previously stored whiteboard files in Azure storage. In 2022, Whiteboard switched to OneDrive as the storage location for most newly created boards. We made a client-based migration available for your organization, which is currently rolling out gradually. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 117394.

[When this will happen]

The client-based migration experience started in December 2024 (previously July), and we expect to complete the migration by early June 2025.

[How this will affect your organization]

Any user who launches an eligible Whiteboard client (Whiteboard on Windows, Whiteboard in Teams desktop/web) will automatically kick off a non-blocking migration of all their whiteboards. Depending on how many whiteboards they have, on average the process will take between a few seconds to a few minutes.

The migration will provide many benefits for your organization and users on the migrated boards, including:

• Features unique to whiteboards stored in OneDrive, such as Follow, Commenting, and more.
• Improved performance on whiteboards now stored in OneDrive.
• Improved compliance and security associated with whiteboard being stored in OneDrive.

There is no possibility to delay the migration.

[What you need to do to prepare]

The migration will happen naturally and automatically for most users in your organization with no disruption, but please ensure that users are aware they need to launch Whiteboard in one of the previously mentioned clients in order to keep their content prior to the conclusion of the migration.

In the unlikely case that a user’s whiteboards fail to migrate, they will see an error banner. We will attempt to migrate the board again in 30 days. If the board contains important information, we recommend the user copy the content to a new whiteboard.

Users will be able to see which boards have not migrated in a dedicated section on the board picker. Admins will be able to verify what whiteboard content remains in Azure and obtain the userIDs via our PowerShell cmdlets, if you wish to proactively notify users to get their content.

Complete details about the migration can be found in Migration of Whiteboards from Azure to OneDrive – Microsoft Support, including how start and completion of migration will be notified, how errors will be communicated, and the new PowerShell cmdlets.

Updated February 13, 2025: We have updated the content. Thank you for your patience.

A new feature for Microsoft OneDrive enables bulk export of device status, including username, sync app version, known folders, last sync date, and sync errors. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 88870.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

You will be able to export OneDrive sync report data through Microsoft Graph Data Connect. The data is transferred to a Microsoft Azure account owned by the tenant, where you can use tools like Azure Synapse and Power BI to transform this into insightful reports and dashboards.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Make sure that OneDrive sync reports are enabled on your organization’s devices so that the data is available for export.

Updated February 13, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon for Microsoft Outlook for iOS and Android: We will add support for choosing fonts while composing emails. We will also improve support for fonts while reading emails.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 409969.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

When this update rolls out, users will be able to select fonts to use in emails, signatures, automatic replies, and calendar invitations:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

Updated February 13, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Before this rollout, Microsoft Teams chat and Microsoft 365 Copilot interactions are available together to be included or excluded in the Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management policy in the Purview compliance center.

After this rollout, admins can have separate policies for Copilot interactions. Also, admins can separate Teams chat from Copilot interactions to create new retention policies for Copilot messages only.

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

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 407897.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Admins will be able to separate existing Teams Chat from Copilot interactions:

This feature is available by default for admins to configure from the Data Lifecycle Management Retention policies.

Separate Copilot retention policies from Teams chats:

[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 users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

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

Updated February 13, 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 late February 2025 (previously early February) and expect to complete by late March 2025 (previously late February).

[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 13, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

The AI assistance category page in Adoption Score helps adoption specialists measure progress towards making Microsoft 365 Copilot a daily habit. We are updating this page with an enhanced score, new Microsoft 365 Copilot usage metrics, time trends, and peer benchmarking. The page remains in public preview for this update.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 185700

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

The updated AI Assistance score (preview) introduces:

• Improved scoring model: the revised score takes into account a much wider range of M365 Copilot features as compared with V1, including usage of M365 Copilot Chat and all M365 Copilot capabilities across Teams, Outlook, and Office apps. As new Copilot features are released in these apps, usage of them automatically accrues to the score. As a result, tenants will see a much higher score as compared with V1, and efforts to grow adoption should lead more directly to score gains.
• Peer Benchmarking: Customers can compare their score to peers in their industry, consistent with other Adoption Score categories.
• Expanded secondary insights: V2 includes new feature-level usage metrics for Microsoft 365 Copilot features such as M365 Copilot Chat (work) as well as a histogram summarizing the number of days during which users were active in Copilot over the past month.
• Time Trends: Customers can view how key M365 Copilot usage metrics (including the score itself) are trending over time, going back up to 180 days.

These insights provide Adoption Specialists and IT admins with a more comprehensive view of Copilot engagement, helping them drive adoption and measure success.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Ensure that any admin that currently uses the report is aware of this update.