Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter en blogs updates van 11-01-2025

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

Users now have the ability to save the filters applied to Microsoft 365 Activity Explorer and use them later.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 374375

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Customers will now have a better investigation experience in Activity Explorer without having to set the filters every time they go to the page.

[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 January 10, 2025: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Please note that information about meeting link expiry changes related to this rollout has been added.

We are reducing the length of Microsoft Teams meeting URLs for easier sharing. This rollout applies to all Microsoft Teams platforms (Teams for iOS, Android, Mac, Teams devices, desktop, and web).

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 381953.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

The new URL syntax is: https://teams.microsoft.com/meet/<meeting_id>?p=<HashedPasscode>

To make meeting URL shorter, we are removing several parameters such as tenant ID, conversation ID etc. This change serves two main goals: 1) improving usability of URL during sharing and 2) making the URL more secure and less susceptible to malicious attacks.

Here are some details about how meeting links work and when they expire:

1. In case the meeting organizer gets removed from the tenant, the links to the meetings scheduled by them automatically expire.
2.  Every meeting link expires in 60 days after the scheduled event or in 8 hours, if it was created as Meet Now. Learn more about expiration timelines for different types of meetings.

With the Short Meeting URL release, expiration limit will be applied to all newly created links.

Once the change to Short Meeting URL is released, all newly created meetings will expire as described in the documentation: 60 days after meeting ends for scheduled meetings and 8 hours after creation for Meet Now. Once this expiry period is over, in case someone clicks the link (e.g. outside of Teams app OR in the meeting details inside Teams calendar section), they will be unable to join the meeting.

Note: Old links created before short meeting URL release will continue working as it previously was (user will be able to join even after the documented expiry limits).

The reason why we are making this change is simple: security is our topmost priority. Maintaining a high security level is essential to protect sensitive data, prevent financial losses, ensure business continuity, and meet compliance and legal obligations. It is a critical aspect of modern digital life and business operations. This adjustment is designed to enhance the security of Teams meeting links, thereby better safeguarding the customer tenant. We want to be on par with modern security standards, that’s why the new behavior is a step in the right direction that we must take. It’s not possible to keep the current behavior. If you think it breaks some of your business processes, please leave comment to the MC post and describe your case there.

Recommendations in case the meeting link has expired:

For meeting organizer: We recommend scheduling a new meeting. If the meeting organizer got removed from the tenant someone else should reschedule their meetings from scratch.

For participant: Please reach out to the meeting organizer and ask them to reschedule the meeting or send you an updated link.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

You may want to check if you have any integrations that use parameters from URL. After the rollout, the URL will only contain the meeting ID. Parameters such as tenant ID, organizer ID, conversation ID and message ID will not be in the URL.

You may inform meeting organizers from your tenant who use expired meeting links, or you may want to make a tenant-wide announcement about this change.

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.

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

Coming soon to Microsoft Purview | Information Protection: Admins will be able to save filters for Microsoft 365 Activity Explorer and then quickly apply a filter later from set of saved filters. Saved filters are shared with other members of the team for increased collaboration and productivity.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 374375.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout: Admins were not able to save filters or share filter sets with colleagues.

After this rollout: Saving a new filter set in Activity Explorer > Apply filters > Select Save:

This feature is on by default and can be used by all Activity explorer users.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Learn more: Get started with Activity explorer | Microsoft Learn

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified dates 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.

Updated January 10, 2025: This is a friendly reminder.

To enhance the security and compliance of Viva Engage, we will be retiring all private unlisted groups (also known as “Secret Groups”) on January 13, 2025. These groups and all associated data will be deleted on February 10, 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Viva Engage will no longer support private unlisted groups in external networks. All underlying content, including messages and files, will be deleted. Users will no longer be able to:

• Create private unlisted groups in external networks.
• Participate in private unlisted groups in external networks.
• Access and export data in unlisted groups in external networks.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There will be no exceptions to the deprecation and deletion starting on January 13, 2025. We recommend you communicate clearly to group owners of this impending change and coordinate an effort to remove the groups or convert them to a listed private or public group.

Here is a guide on How to find and manage your external Viva Engage network. Verified Admins can see all external networks created for the tenant. Learn how more about managing admin roles here: Manage administrator roles in Viva Engage.

To convert the group to listed, select “List in our network’s directory and search results” in the group settings page and save changes. Converting private unlisted groups is the only way to keep the group and its data active in external networks.

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

Thank you for your engagement with the new chat and channels experience in Teams.

The new chat and channels experience has been in Public Preview and Targeted Release since November 2024 and was targeted for General Availability starting in late January 2025. Based on requests from customers to have additional time to prepare their organizations for the change, we will be postponing the rollout to General Availability from January to a later date.

The GA rollout date is updated to starting late March 2025.

We’ve been listening to user feedback on the pace of work and the challenges of keeping up with conversations, managing messages scattered across different locations, and triaging quickly. To address this, we’ve streamlined the chats, teams, and channels experience to make it easier for users to stay on top of what matters most.

For more details and screenshots, refer to Microsoft Teams announces out a new chat and channels experience | Microsoft 365 Blog

This message applies to Teams on Windows desktops, Mac desktops, the web, and iOS and Android devices.

This message excludes Education tenants. We will send a future post with an update on the plan for Education tenants.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 415249.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, users have separate Chat and Teams views (apps) with no option to unify these views; custom sections of chats and channels were not possible; and there was no view for collecting all personal mentions in one list across chats and channels.

The new experience brings chat, teams, and channels into one place, in Chat, so users can easily navigate between all conversations without switching between contexts. Users start in the combined Chat view but can opt to keep chat separate from teams and channels like before.

In the Chat view, users will see these sections (in order):

1. Favorites containing any previously pinned chats and channels
2. Chats sorted by most recent
3. Teams and channels, organized in same order as in the Teams view

Also, users can create custom sections to organize projects and topics that can include individual, group, and meeting chats, as well as channels.

Favorites, Chats, and Teams and channels in one list in Teams for Windows:

Favorites, Chats, and Teams and channels in one list in Teams for iOS (also available for Android):

New filters for Unread, Chat, Channels, Meetings and more help users focus on relevant conversation in their list. Filters persist until turned off.

The new @mention view gathers all personal @mentions into one interactive list. Users can quickly access messages with @mentions across chats, channels, and meetings.

Use /go to: Quickly navigate to your frequently used conversation across your chat and channels with a new keyboard shortcut Ctrl+G (Cmd+G on Mac).

Customizing the experience

Users can tailor their chat and channels experience in Teams Settings. Users can choose to keep chat, teams, and channels combined in Chat (default) or switch to separate Chat and Teams views. In the combined Chat view, message previews are off by default to simplify the list. Users can turn on message previews in Settings.

When using the separate Chat and Teams views, users can still use the new filters and the @mentions view to triage and organize topics with custom sections.

Starting the new experience

A self-service guided onboarding flow in Teams will help users discover the new experience and configure it to their preferences. Users who prefer to keep chat and channels separate can easily do so during the onboarding process or later, without IT assistance.

When the new experience is available in your tenant, this screen will display to users:

The Get started button will take users to the new combined chat, teams, and channels experience in Chat, and highlight the location of settings. Users will have the option to defer the new experience up to three times over the course of approximately three days, providing flexibility while also moving an organization to the new experience overall.

This feature is on by default. The new experience has no admin policy. Each user can make choices to optimize for how they work best.

[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. To help prepare organizations for the new features, product guides for admins and users will be available on the adoption web page The new Microsoft Teams chat and channels experience before rollout begins.

For admins who opt in to emails for recommended Microsoft 365 training, an email for users will summarize the update when released.

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

Coming soon to Microsoft Outlook: Microsoft 365 Copilot can help you prepare for upcoming meetings by summarizing key information about a meeting such as the purpose, action items, pre-reads and related discussions. Copilot summarizes based on meeting related information found on the Microsoft Graph and provides a unique summary for each attendee based on the content they have permission to access.

This feature will be available in new Outlook for Windows and web. A Microsoft 365 Copilot license is required to use this feature.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 374723.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout: New Outlook users did not have access to pre-meeting summaries in the calendar.

After this rollout: As the admin, you must first ensure the Meeting Insights setting is enabled for your tenant in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Then, for Outlook meetings with a pre-meeting summary, users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license will see a Prepare with Copilot button when opening the meeting invite in the calendar.

Note: Not all meetings will have a Prepare with Copilot button. At this time, only meetings with more than two participants are supported. Because the feature summarizes content related to the meeting, users will not see a Prepare with Copilot button for a meeting if no meeting-related content was shared with participants. We are continuously working to expand the set of meetings that can be summarized.

Please note that each summary is grounded in content that only the user can access, so each summary is unique to each participant.

This feature is enabled by default for all Copilot users unless you as the admin confirm that it was disabled in Meeting Insights before the rollout.

If a summary is available for a meeting, users will see a Prepare with Copilot button in their meeting invite:

After a user selects Prepare with Copilot, the summary is generated and displayed:

You can ensure the Meeting Insights setting is enabled for your tenant in the Microsoft 365 admin center > Search & intelligence > Configurations:

[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.

#newoutlookforwindows

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

Coming soon for the Microsoft Viva Insights app: Leaders can explore organizational and behavioral data using Microsoft 365 Copilot in Viva Insights. After this rollout, leaders can ask questions about their organization in chat and explore new reports.

• New query capabilities: Leaders and their delegates will be able to ask Copilot in Viva Insights questions about their organization’s composition, team collaboration, hybrid work patterns, geographic distributions, and more.
• New Copilot in Viva Insights-driven reports: Leaders and their delegates can also view reports on organizational composition information that include a list of employees and other uploaded attribute information like Function, Manager, and location information like Country or City.
• New Viva Insights app home page: The home page will suggest queries that leaders can use in Copilot in Viva Insights. Previously existing leader reports and personal insights features will continue to be accessible through the Organizational behavior reports and Personal insights sections of the new home page.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 415452.

A Viva Insights premium license is required to access most of the features described in this message. A Microsoft 365 Copilot license is not needed to access the features described in this message.

This message applies to Viva Insights on the web and in the Viva Insights app in Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for the web, and Teams for iOS/Android.

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We began rolling out early December 2024 and expect to complete by late December 2024.

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Leaders and delegates entering the Viva Insights app will experience an updated home page and new features in the Copilot in Viva Insights chat pane on the right of the screen:

Leaders and delegates will now be able to ask and visualize a richer set of organizational composition queries in Copilot in Viva Insights chat such as “how many employees do I have in the United States” or “how many new hires joined in the last 3 months?”

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. Please make users in your organization aware of this upcoming change and direct them to Viva Insights documentation to learn more about how to use Copilot in Viva Insights.

Fresh data upload: For this update to be valuable to leaders and their delegates, you must upload fresh and complete data once a month. If minimal data is provided, Copilot in Viva Insights will not be able to answer questions completely or accurately. Please refer to Viva Insights documentation for more information about what attributes to upload and how. Before rollout, we will update this post with new and revised documentation.

Data availability: Uploaded data will be available to leaders and their delegates, so don’t upload sensitive Human Resources (HR) attributes that you would not want to be accessible to leaders and delegates. Questions regarding HR data will be answered based on all users who have a Viva Insights license.

Review general manager and delegate roles: This update will be rolled out to anyone with a general manager (GM) role who meets minimum team size, or anyone who has delegate access from a leader. If you do not want a user to have access to Copilot in Viva Insights, you can remove their GM role. If you do not want a delegate to have access, you can remove their delegate access with a Microsoft PowerShell script.

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

The AI and Copilot Resources Provider that powers the out-of-box (OOB) Microsoft Copilot Academy will be visible by default to users who have Copilot licenses. Admins will be able to enable, disable, and apply permissions to the content of this provider.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 412064.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

If a tenant has at least one Copilot license, Knowledge admins or Knowledge managers will be able to view AI and Copilot Resources Provider by default under Admin > Manage providers tab. They can delete and reconfigure as needed.

They can also apply permissions to the content of this provider through Admin >Manage permissions > Provider tab. 

• By default, providers content is visible to Copilot licensed users.
• On applying permissions, the content becomes visible to the selected group.
• On removing permissions, the content returns to the default behavior.

Users with Copilot licenses will also be able to search for AI and Copilot Resources content:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

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

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

This new feature provides the capability for admins to configure separate retention policies for various Microsoft 365 Copilot and AI apps. As a result, admins will have the option to configure policies that can delete Copilot and Generative AI interactions faster.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 470025.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Organizations will now have controls to configure different retention policies for Microsoft Teams Chat, Copilot, Copilot studio, and ChatGPT Enterprise.

This feature is available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

For more information, see Create and configure a retention policy.

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.

New Outlook for Windows will be automatically installed on Windows 10 devices as part of an upcoming monthly security release.

[When this will happen:]

Available as part of:

• the optional Windows 10 release on January 28, 2025.
• the monthly security update release for Windows 10 on February 11, 2025.

[How this affects your organization:]

New Outlook exists as an installed app on the device. For instance, it can be found in the Apps section of the Start Menu. It does not replace existing (classic) Outlook or change any configurations / user defaults. Both (classic) Outlook and New Outlook for Windows can run side by side.

[What you can do to prepare:]

Guidance for how to control the installation of new Outlook can be found here: Block new Outlook pre-install on Windows.