Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter and blogs updates from 22-02-2025

Before this rollout, Microsoft Endpoint data loss prevention (Endpoint DLP) supports Audit only, Block, and Block with override on the Create policy page in Microsoft Purview | Endpoint DLP. This rollout will add two new modes: Off and Allow.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 480731.

[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:]

The two new modes are:

• Off: Endpoint DLP will not trigger events or Alerts and will not trigger notifications. You can use this enforcement mode to configure restrictions for a specific group.
• Allow: Endpoint DLP will not trigger Alerts and will not trigger notifications but will trigger events in Activity explorer.

In Microsoft Purview, the new Allow and Off enforcement modes on the Create policy page for Endpoint DLP:

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

[What you need to do to prepare:]

You will need these prerequisites to use the new modes:

1. All prerequisites in Onboard Windows devices into Microsoft 365 overview | Microsoft Learn
2. A Defender Antimalware client version higher than 4.18.25010. To find the version of Microsoft Defender (Windows Defender) Antimalware, follow these steps:
   1. Open Windows Security.
   2. Click on the Settings gear icon.
   3. Look for the About link.
   4. The About page contains the version information for the Windows Defender components.

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.

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

The Muting Teams with Windows Taskbar is now available. This feature, available in the new Teams experience on Windows, enables you to mute and unmute your audio by clicking the mic icon in Windows taskbar.

To control your call mic from the taskbar, do the following:

Select the mic icon on your taskbar or press Windows logo key + Alt + K to mute or unmute your microphone while using a calling app.

-OR- Click the volume icon in the hardware indicator for volume in Windows taskbar.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 191528

[When this will happen:]

Targeted release: We will begin rolling out early June 2024 (previously mid-May) and expect to complete by mid-June 2024 (previously late May).

Worldwide, GCC, GCC High & DoD: We will begin rolling out mid-June 2024 (previously early June) and expect to complete by complete by late March 2025 (previously late January).

[How this will affect your organization:]

This enables a feature previously available in older version of Teams on Windows.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

To prepare, distribute updates on this rollout with your organization if applicable for your users.

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

Users can now record themselves anywhere and share it with coworkers in the Microsoft Teams chat or channel without worrying about the background. Users can now change their background to any image they want or make the background blurry while recording using their Microsoft Teams camera on iOS devices. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 380852

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Users will get an option to change their background to any image they want or make the background blurry while recording using their Microsoft Teams camera on an iOS device. To use this feature:

1. Press and hold the camera icon next to the Compose box and then tap the blur icon to the right of the shutter button.
2. You can then choose either an image to replace the background or choose to mildly or heavily blur your background.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

No action is needed to prepare for this change. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

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

We are beginning the process to standardize all transcript storage to OneDrive, starting with the storage of transcripts for meetings that only have transcription enabled. Previously, meetings with only transcription enabled saved the transcript file to the meeting organizer’s Exchange Online, while meetings with both recording and transcription enabled saved two transcript copies—one that is coupled with the recording saved to OneDrive and another transcript copy saved to the meeting organizer’s Exchange Online. 

Now with this feature, meetings that have only transcription enabled will also save two copies (one in OneDrive and one in Exchange Online), but all meeting transcript entry points in Teams app will point to the OneDrive copy only, no entry points for meeting transcripts will source from the Exchange Online copy. At the same time, meeting transcripts will stop saving in Exchange Online altogether and all transcript storage will be standardized on OneDrive only. 

The rollout of this feature also improves both the experience of meeting organizers to manually delete the transcript, as well as the ability for IT administrators to apply retention policies to the transcripts from meetings that only had transcription enabled. 

A summary of the deletion experience for meeting transcripts is captured in the following table: 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 365720

[When this will happen:]

Targeted release: We will begin rolling out early June 2024 (previously mid-May) and expect to complete by mid-June 2024 (previously late May).

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): We will begin rolling out mid-June 2024 (previously late May) and expect to complete by late August 2024 (previously mid-August).

GCC High: We will begin rolling out late August 2024 and expect to complete by mid-September 2024.

DoD: We will begin rolling out late September 2024 and expect to complete by late March 2025 (previously late January).

[How this will affect your organization:]

There is no change to the end user experience for viewing and downloading Teams meeting transcripts. The only change for meeting organizers and co-organizers is for any meetings that are held after this feature rolls out, they can delete all copies of the meeting transcript directly from the Teams app, instead of having to manually delete all copies of the transcript from two places (Teams app and Stream). For IT administrators, they can start applying retention policies for the copy of the transcript saved in OneDrive, including scenarios where a meeting only had transcription enabled. This retention policy won’t affect the copies saved in Exchange Online, to bulk delete transcript files saved in Exchange Online—please refer to this documentation.

We will also update the default transcript permissions. After the rollout, when the new policy is not applied, only meeting organizers and co-organizers will have permission to download or delete the transcript file, and meeting participants can only view the transcript in Teams or Microsoft Stream. Regardless of whether the new policy is applied, the meeting organizer will be able to select in Stream the participants who are restricted from downloading, viewing, and editing the transcript in Stream.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There is no action needed to prepare for this change. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

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

Coming soon for Microsoft Teams: A new policy for IT admis to restrict permissions to download new meeting transcript files (stored in Microsoft OneDrive) for all users in the tenant. Admins can exempt people from the policy who are members of specified security groups such as governance or compliance specialists who require download access to meeting transcripts. This rollout applies to Teams for Mac and Teams for desktop.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 332800.

[When this will happen:]

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

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): We will begin rolling out mid-June 2024 (previously late May) and expect to complete by late June 2024 (previously early June).

General Availability (GCC High): We will begin rolling out late August 2024 (previously mid-July) and expect to complete by mid-September 2024 (previously late July)

General Availability (DoD): We will begin rolling out late September 2024 (previously mid-August) and expect to complete by complete by late March 2025 (previously late January).

[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 admins about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

Learn more: Block the download of Teams meeting recording files from SharePoint or OneDrive – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn (We will update this comm before rollout with revised documentation.)

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

With skin tone settings and reactions in Microsoft Teams, users will be able to set a preferred skin tone for relevant emojis and reactions. Each user can change their own skin tone setting in the Teams app Settings > Appearance and accessibility menu or in the emoji/reaction menu on Desktop or web. The skin tone rollout will apply to emojis and reactions in chats, channels, and meetings on all Teams platforms (Teams for Desktop, Teams for web, Teams for Mac, and Teams Mobile).

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 323766.

[When this will happen:]

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

General availability (Worldwide, GCC): We will begin rolling out early November 2024 (previously late October) and expect to complete by late December 2024.

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Changing skin tone in the emoji menu in Teams for Desktop:

Changing skin tone in Teams Settings > Appearance and accessibility in Teams for Desktop:

Changing skin tone in Teams Settings > Appearance on Teams Mobile:

The selected skin tone appears in reactions in chats, channels, and meetings:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

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

We will update this post before rollout with revised documentation.

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

Note: If you are not using frontline worker functionality, you can ignore this message.

Coming soon in the Microsoft Teams admin center: Admins will be able to deploy location-based frontline teams where team membership is automatically managed, and team owners can also add frontline workers or remove them from teams. This rollout will allow admins to take advantage of dynamic rules to keep teams updated as members join and leave the organization and also give team owners the autonomy to manage membership at the team level.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 410774.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, admins are able to:

• Create location-based dynamic frontline teams where team membership is strictly managed with dynamic rules.
• Identify frontliner workers in their organization with a Microsoft Entra attribute and value pairings in the Deploy Teams at Scale tool.
• Assign a single team owner for all frontline teams.

After this rollout, admins will be able to:

• Create location-based frontline teams where team membership is automatically managed with dynamic rules, while respecting manual changes made by team owners.
• Identify frontline workers in their organization with dynamic groups in the Deploy Teams at Scale tool.
• Assign multiple individuals in the organization as team owners of frontline teams.

After this rollout, team owners will be able to:

• Add or remove frontline workers at their frontline locations if they are assigned team owner of their team.

This feature is on by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Review the documentation:

• How to find the best frontline team solution for your organization – Microsoft 365 for frontline workers | Microsoft Learn
• Deploy frontline dynamic teams at scale – Microsoft 365 for frontline workers | Microsoft Learn
• Microsoft Teams frontline usage report – Microsoft 365 for frontline workers | Microsoft Learn

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

Anonymous users (guests) who join Microsoft Teams meetings in the Chrome web browser will soon experience performance improvements.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 401116.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, anonymous users (guests) may experience longer wait times when attempting to join a Teams meeting.

After this rollout, anonymous users (guests) will be able to join meetings faster, even on low-end devices.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

You may want to update your internal documentation to inform your users about this improvement. However, because the improvement is for external users and does not change the look of Teams, you can skip this step./p>

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

Anonymous users (guests) who join Microsoft Teams meetings in the Microsoft Edge for Business web browser will soon experience performance improvements. They will be able to join meetings faster.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 401117.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, anonymous users (guests) may experience longer wait times when attempting to join a Teams meeting.

After this rollout, anonymous users (guests) will be able to join meetings faster, even on low-end devices.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This rollout will happen automatically with no admin action required. 

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

With this feature, sensitive data in files that are stored in network shares and mapped network drives will be protected by Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies across Mac endpoints.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 410397.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

After this rollout, you can configure DLP policies to prevent your users from taking egress actions such as copy to USB, copy to clipboard, and more for sensitive files stored on network shares. This brings protection for sensitive content on files in network shares with the same protection behavior as a file on mounted hard drive. You will also an alert once any policy is matched against such actions. You can also configure exclusions for certain network shares if you desire.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Get started with Data Loss Prevention in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.

Learn more: Configure endpoint DLP settings | Microsoft Learn

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

Custom engine agents and Teams bots can now stream responses like Microsoft Copilot. They can provide real-time updates on their actions while delivering parts of the response as they generate it, making interactions feel faster and more engaging.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 422261

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

When users interact with a custom engine agent or Teams bot that streams its response, they will experience the new UX.

Users will first see informative updates from the agent on what it is doing while it generates a response to the user’s message:

Once the agent has performed prerequisite actions and is ready to respond, users will start to see the agent’s response flow in as incremental chunks until the full response is available. This experience is very similar to how the response iteratively appears on leading AI experiences like ChatGPT or Copilot:

Users will have the option to stop generating the response if they feel the agent is headed down an ineffective path. Users can simply click on the stop button underneath the response, and this will stop the agent’s response. Users can then prompt the agent again:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

You may consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate.

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

Coming soon to Microsoft Purview | Insider Risk Management: Two new preconfigured quick policy templates for Crown jewel protection and Email exfiltration. These templates are for admins who want to deploy scenario-specific policy templates with less configuration, to get started faster. The existing quick policies for Data leak and Data theft will continue to be available. You can find all four scenario-based quick policies in Insider Risk Management at Policies > Create Policies. Admins can expect additional turning after deploying these policies to meet individual alert volume needs.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 409966.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

1. Sign in to Insider Risk Management with the admin role permissions
2. Go to the Policies page at https://purview.microsoft.com/insiderriskmgmt/policiespage
3. Select Create policy
4. Select Quick policies
5. Select either the Crown jewel protection policy or the Email exfiltration policy
6. Configure policy as applicable (add users to scope, optional priority content, and so on)

The new policies 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. 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: The Quick Policies section in Create and manage insider risk management policies | Microsoft Learn

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

In order to automate BYOD user experience (BYOD mode) for users in meeting rooms, the peripherals that users plug in must be associated to those rooms in Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro management portal. The Pro management portal will soon use meeting room invite data to intelligently associate peripherals to rooms, automatically creating inventory relationships for you. The association logic relies on many unique users joining a meeting with a specific meeting room booked and the same peripheral plugged in, as identified by serial number and VIDPID. Auto association can also keep up with the times by re-associating a peripheral if it gets physically moved to another room.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 469495.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

For you: Shared peripherals (peripherals used by multiple unique users who are in the office) will be automatically associated to your BYOD rooms in the Pro management portal. This automatic process will enable you to see the peripherals in each room.

For your users: After this rollout, users who plug in an associated peripheral will automatically have BYOD mode activated because we can be confident these users are in a meeting room. BYOD mode will have these benefits:

• Auto selection of the associated audio/video device in Teams so users never accidentally use their PC’s audio
• Shared display mode for enhanced content sharing to the meeting room
• Speaker attribution to enable Microsoft Copilot (for Microsoft 365 Copilot license holders) and transcript to recognize speakers in the room
• Automatically disable voice isolation to prevent this from filtering out other people in the room
• Grouping users under a room node in participant roster

Note: This process relies on bookings and peripheral plug-ins. It may take some time. Do not expect to see associations on day one of launch. We recommend checking back once a week or once a month to see how the process is going.

You will also be able to:

• Configure the threshold of users who need to report a peripheral-room pairing in order to auto associate. A higher threshold may yield a more accurate result but may significantly slow down the process.
• Independently mark auto associated rooms or peripherals as verified if you choose to manually check for accuracy, though this may be difficult to scale and is not recommended or necessary.
• Enable/disable auto association for specific rooms, or for your entire tenant globally.
• Export your inventory associations for use in your own asset management tools.

This change will be available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

• Rooms that are hidden in the global address list (GAL) in your tenant are not seen by the Pro management portal. You may wish to make these rooms visible and use another method to make them unbookable.
• Some users do not book rooms or plug in peripherals. Both behaviors are necessary for auto association to receive enough signals and confidence to work. You may benefit from encouraging your users to book rooms and plug in peripherals.

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. Review your current room inventory 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 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 late March 2025 (previously early February).

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

We’re making some changes to feedback policies in Outlook mobile for iOS and Android behavior to match our documentation.

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

According to the current Microsoft documentation in Manage Microsoft feedback for your organization – Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn, setting feedback collection policies to Not configured has the same effect as setting them to Enabled. Before this rollout, Outlook for iOS and Android currently does the opposite of the documentation and prevents users from including log files and content samples when the Allow users to include log files and content samples when feedback is submitted to Microsoft policy is not configured.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

After this rollout, the behavior will align to the current documentation to allow users to include log files and content samples when submitting feedback if the policy is not configured. Please review the documentation and your organization’s configuration to ensure that it matches your requirements.

This change will be available by default.

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: Manage Microsoft feedback for your organization – Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn

Updated February 20, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. 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 April 2025 (previously early March) and expect to complete by mid-April 2025 (previously mid-March).

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

Coming soon for Microsoft Teams: We are updating our default policy settings for transcription for new tenants. Before this rollout, the setting was off by default. After this rollout, the setting will be on by default. This change applies to new global policies created for new tenants. Existing policies in the Teams admin center will not be changed; however, tenants that have not customized any part of their Teams meeting policy will be impacted.

• Tenants without customized policies: The new default settings will apply, and these tenants will be impacted by this change.
• Tenants with customized policies: Policies for user-level assignments or group-level assignments will remain unchanged and unaffected.

This change is designed to streamline the adoption of transcription and enhance the use of all AI features. This change will align transcription with the default policy for recording, which is also enabled by default in Teams admin center. This message applies to Teams for Windows desktop and Teams for Mac desktop.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 468282.

[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 mid-February).

[How this will affect your organization:]

After this rollout, transcription services will be more accessible to users, allowing them to turn on and use transcription as needed during meetings. Transcription will not be automatically activated for every meeting.

For new tenants, transcription will be enabled by default when admins set up their global policies. New tenants will automatically have the transcription policy turned on when they start. Existing tenants without a global policy will also have the policy turned on by default.

Transcription policy on by default in Teams admin center. Admins can turn off the policy if needed:

[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.

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

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

Coming soon for the Shifts app in Microsoft Teams: An enhanced All schedules view with a new dropdown filter, enabling you to easily switch between active and archived teams. This feature helps reduce clutter, allowing managers and frontline workers to concentrate on the schedules of active teams. This message applies to Teams on Windows desktop and Teams for Mac desktop.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 422814.

[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 mid-February).

[How this will affect your organization:]

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 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.

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

Microsoft Teams will soon have a new location sharing setting that will allow users to grant location access to specific features. This change will affect emergency dynamic policy and the network bandwidth policy.

This message applies to Teams for Windows desktop (version 24H2 or greater) and Teams for Mac desktop. VDI clients will not be supported at this time. [When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout: Location access was governed exclusively at the operating system level. With this update, location consent will also be required from users at the individual application level. As a result, users gain more granular control over which specific application features can access their location.

After this rollout, Teams users can grant location access to certain Teams features. The setting for IT insights for admins feature are in Teams Settings > Privacy > Location. The setting for the Emergency calls feature is in the user’s device’s location settings. The user can find a link to their device’s location settings in Teams Settings > Privacy > Location:

If a user consented to location access before the rollout, the user will be prompted to confirm their selection in this new popup that will display after the next Teams version update. If a user has not previously consented, they will not see the popup and can adjust their preferences in Settings.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

NOTE: After this rollout, dynamic emergency calling may not work as intended unless users allow location detection at the operating system level and app level. This dynamic emergency calling issue includes scenarios where admins have configured a network site for their users (location must be enabled by the user). To ensure emergency calls are properly routed to the nearest public safety answering point (PSAP), please advise your users to accept the new location requests from Teams. This also applies to users who may have consented to location access before the rollout.

You can communicate this requirement by setting the emergency service disclaimer with a custom message that will display in the Calls app in Teams. Ensuring that end users have location turned on is crucial for proper functioning of emergency calls and their safety. Learn more about sending a custom message: Manage emergency calling policies in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn

To continue managing video and media settings with the network roaming policy, users must enable Insights for IT admins in Teams Settings > Privacy > Location > Insights for IT admins.

Learn more about the changes to location services and privacy policies

• Windows location service and privacy – Microsoft Support
• Enable location sharing – Microsoft Support (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. Please notify your users and admins about this change and update any relevant documentation.