Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter en blogs updates van 16-08-2024

Updated August 15, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Users can soon find all of their emojis, GIFs, and stickers in a combined picker in Microsoft Teams.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 84023

[When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out in early December 2023 (previously late November) and expect to complete rollout by late January 2024 (previously mid-December).

Worldwide: We will begin rolling out in early April 2024 (previously mid-March) and expect to complete rollout by late July 2024.

GCC, GCC High, DoD: We will begin rolling out in late July 2024 (previously early June) and expect to complete rollout by late August 2024 (previously early August).

[How this will affect your organization:]

Users can find emojis, GIFs, and stickers combined in one menu under the smiley face icon. All the fun content will remain as normal for users to add in their messages.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There is nothing you need to do to prepare.

Updated August 15, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below for DoD organizations. Thank you for your patience.

Microsoft Teams Meeting users will be notified directly through the error message on meeting right pane for why they cannot access meeting chats when their chat access is limited by policy or due to system limitations and unexpected errors.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 167211

[When this will happen:]

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

Worldwide: We will begin rolling out early December and expect to complete by mid-December.

GCC: We will begin rolling out early January and expect to complete by mid-January.

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

DoD: We will begin rolling out early February and expect to complete by late August 2024 (previously early August).

[How this will affect your organization:]

Once available, users will begin to understand why they cannot access certain chats during meetings.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There is no action needed to prepare for this change.

Updated August 15, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

You can now get the Calendar Notifications in Teams from the Activity Feed. 

• You will get calendar notifications in the Activity Feed for the below scenarios: 
• Meeting invite (including channel meetings you are explicitly invited to)
• Meeting updates
• Meeting cancellations
• Meeting forwards (as an organizer)
• When you get a calendar notification, you will see an unread notification in the Activity Feed pane or at the bell icon.
• When you click on a notification, you will see the details of the meeting/event in the right pane.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 314355

[When this will happen:]

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

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High & DoD): We will begin rolling out early April 2024 (previously late March) and expect to complete by late August 2024 (previously late July).

[How this will affect your organization:]

Users will get Calendar notifications in the Activity Feed within Teams. These notification settings for Calendar can be modified from “Notifications and activity” in the Settings menu in Teams. 

[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 August 15, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

In Microsoft Teams, users will be able to browse, multiselect and attach files from SharePoint Sites to a chat or channel conversation in the Teams mobile application.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 395375

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

No change or configuration is required by admins. Users will automatically see the option to attach files from their SharePoint sites when composing a message in any chat or channel. They simply need to tap on the ‘+’ to open the compose tray and then tap on the paperclip icon to attach files.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There is no preparation required.

Updated August 15, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

We will soon enable enhanced purchase experience in both the Teams Admin Center and the Teams app store. This improvement will empower administrators and end-users to seamlessly assess the plans offered by an app and secure third-party app subscriptions that optimally meet their needs. The aim of this overhauled experience is to simplify and expedite the subscription purchase journey, from choosing a plan to finalizing and reviewing the billing details.

Our goal in refreshing our purchase user experience with new designs and structures is to offer a more recognizable user interface. This will enable users to comfortably identify the most suitable plan for their needs without being inundated by choices and facilitate a smooth plan purchase.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 179897

[When this will happen:]

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out late June 2024 and expect to complete by late July 2024.

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out late June 2024 and expect to complete by late August 2024 (previously late July).

[How this will affect your organization:]

1. Get an overview of the different plans offered by an app by visiting:

       a. Teams app store > App details page of an app > Buy a subscription

       * An IW who is a first-time purchaser, will be prompted to choose the country associated with their billing address prior to being able to view the plan.

     b. Teams admin center (TAC) > Teams apps > Manage apps page > Select app > Plans & pricing:

2. Once you’ve selected the plan, specify the quantity of licenses and duration of the subscription you wish to purchase for this subscription:

3. Create a new billing account that you intend to use for your billing purpose:

4. Add payment method that you wish to utilize for the subscription purchase 

5. Review the details of your purchase prior to finalizing the transaction:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There is no action needed to prepare for this change.

Updated August 15, 2024: We have updated the content below with additional information. Thank you for your patience.

Microsoft Teams users will soon be able to get a quick overview about a channel using Channel cards. Channel cards will rollout across Microsoft Teams for desktop and web. Channel cards can be found by hovering over the channel name in the header or wherever a channel is mentioned. 

Channel cards will provide information about a channel, including the description, last activity time, team name, and membership information. The card also provides a quick entry to notification settings, owner channel management, and the channel roster.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 397883

[When this will happen:] 

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling early July 2024 and expect to complete by late August 2024 (previously late July).

[How this will affect your organization:]

Users will have a simpler way to get important information about channels. This new feature provides key contextual information as well as quick actions. 

[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 August 15, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon: Microsoft Teams personal apps will have a new simplified design at the top of the screen in Teams desktop and web clients. With this change, the About tab and other utility actions like Refresh for each app will be moved to the three-dot menu at the top of the screen.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 396166.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

This rollout is for new Teams for Desktop, Web, and Mac. This rollout is not for Teams iOS or Android.

Before the rollout, the top of the screen for personal apps in Teams was cluttered with the About tab and other utility actions.

After the rollout, some applications will no longer have any tabs in the header bar, reducing overall complexity and visual clutter.

An example of a personal app with the new design:

This new design is enabled by default for users of new Teams for Desktop, Web, and Mac.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

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

This message covers a change in behavior in Microsoft Outlook for Android regarding App Protection Policy and App Configuration Policy. Before this rollout, Outlook for Android does not adhere to the documented behavior when the App Protection Policy (APP) Org Data Notifications is set to Block. Instead of blocking sensitive data from being exposed in an Outlook notification, Outlook for Android blocks all notifications.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out mid-September and expect to complete by mid-September 2024.

[How this will affect your organization:]

After this rollout, Outlook for Android will match the documented behavior and align with the behavior of Outlook for iOS. Specifically, Outlook for Android will ignore the Block setting value for the Org Data Notifications key. We are letting customers know because they might be dependent on the existing behavior and need to change settings to match their organization’s requirements.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Prior to September 16, review the Outlook App Config Policy (microsoft.com) documentation and your organization’s settings ensure that the combination of settings you have chosen will result in your desired behavior after Outlook for Android matches the documentation. After this date, the Block setting for Org Data Notifications will no longer have an effect in Outlook for Android, and you should use Block Org Data if you want to customize the data shown in notifications.

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.

Coming soon for Microsoft Outlook: If users have enabled work hours and location in Settings, their colleagues will be able to more quickly see who plans to be in the office with a new calendar feature.

This message applies to new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 410986.

[When this will happen:]

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

General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out early October 2024 and expect to complete by late October 2024.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout: Users select the Location icon for each day in the calendar to see who plans to be in the office:

After this rollout: In addition to the Location icon, users will have a new “always on” peek in the top right of the calendar that shows who plans to be in the office for the current day:

This feature is on by default and available to all users of new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web.

[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.

In Microsoft Teams, town halls and webinars currently support the ability for an external user outside the organization to present in an event only through the Teams desktop. With this update, external presenters will have the option to join the event through the Teams mobile app on their Android or iOS devices.  

Note: It is currently not supported for external presenters to join a town hall or webinar through web platforms.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 409228.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): We will begin rolling out in early September 2024 and expect to complete by mid-September 2024.

General Availability (GCC High, DoD): We will begin rolling out in mid-October 2024 and expect to complete by early November 2024.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Presenters external to the organization will now be able to join events through their mobile devices.

For more information on external presenters, see Schedule a town hall in Microsoft Teams.

[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.

Starting on or after October 15, 2024, to further increase security, Microsoft will require admins to use multi-factor authentication (MFA) when signing into the Microsoft Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and Microsoft Intune admin center. Note: This requirement will also apply to any services accessed through the Intune admin center, such as Windows 365 Cloud PC. To take advantage of the extra layer of protection MFA offers, we recommend enabling MFA as soon as possible. To learn more, review Planning for mandatory multifactor authentication for Azure and admin portals.

[How this will affect your organization:]

MFA will need to be enabled for your tenant to ensure admins are able to sign-in to the Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center and Intune admin center after this change.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

• If you have not already, set up MFA before October 15, 2024, to ensure your admins can access the Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and Intune admin center.
• If you are unable to set up MFA before this date, you can apply to postpone the enforcement date.
• If MFA has not been set up before the enforcement starts, admins will be prompted to register for MFA before they can access the Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, or Intune admin center on their next sign-in.

For more information, refer to: Planning for mandatory multifactor authentication for Azure and admin portals.

Next month, we are making several updates to the free Microsoft Copilot service for users with a Microsoft Entra account to enhance data security, privacy, and compliance and simplify the user experience. For users signed in with an Entra account, Microsoft Copilot will offer enterprise data protection (EDP) and redirect users to a new simplified, ad-free user interface designed for work and education. Learn more here: Updates to Microsoft Copilot to bring enterprise data protection to more organizations.

Note: There is no change for Copilot for Microsoft 365 graph-grounded chat or any Copilot experience in the Microsoft 365 productivity apps like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Enterprise data protection is already provided as part of these experiences.

Note: Government cloud customers and students under 18 are not yet eligible.

[When this will happen:]

These updates will begin to roll out in mid-September 2024 and expect to complete by mid-October 2024.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Microsoft Copilot will offer enterprise data protection and redirect users to a new simplified, ad-free user interface designed for work and education when they are signed in with an Entra account. Users will be able to navigate to Microsoft.com/copilot to access this experience. For existing users who are logged in with their Entra account they will automatically be redirected as follows:

• Web: Users signed into Bing.com/chat and copilot.microsoft.com with an Entra account will be redirected to the simplified experience on Microsoft.com/copilot.
• Windows: Users signed in to Windows with an Entra account will be redirected to the Microsoft 365 app and will be able to opt in to Microsoft Copilot.
• Mobile: Users signed into Copilot mobile app with an Entra account will be redirected to the Microsoft 365 mobile app and will be able to opt in to Microsoft Copilot.

Note: Please see “What you need to do to prepare” for instructions on how to manage pinning Microsoft Copilot in your organization.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Users who sign in with an Entra account to Microsoft Copilot will be redirected automatically—no action is required.

To ensure people across your organization have easy access to Microsoft Copilot and can benefit from the security and experience updates to Copilot, we recommend you enable in-app access today by pinning Microsoft Copilot. If you elect to pin Microsoft Copilot for your users, it will appear in the Microsoft 365 app starting mid-September, and it will be coming soon to Microsoft Teams and Outlook. The option to pin Copilot can be found under Settings on the Copilot page in the Microsoft 365 admin center (Global Admin permissions required).

Note: This setting is for users who don’t have a license for Copilot for Microsoft 365; licensed users will have it pinned by default just as it is today.

Additionally, if your organization manages app distribution for mobile devices, you should push the Microsoft 365 mobile app to these users before mid-September. For self-managed devices, you should encourage users to download the Microsoft 365 mobile app before mid-September or they will be prompted to do so when this change happens.

If you wish to inform your users prior to the change, you can use the below message:

“Microsoft Copilot provides a powerful, web-grounded AI chat experience for work with enterprise data protection. Starting mid-September, you’ll be redirected from copilot.microsoft.com and bing.com/chat to microsoft.com/copilot to access a simplified, ad-free Microsoft Copilot experience. If you use the Copilot mobile app, you will be redirected to the Microsoft 365 mobile app. If you do not have the Microsoft 365 app installed, you should do so.”

If you elect to pin Copilot, you can also include the following:

“Microsoft Copilot will also be pinned inside the apps you use every day like the Microsoft 365 app, Outlook, and Teams to make it easier to use Copilot in your flow at work.”

Note: If you do not make a pinning selection by mid-September, your users will be prompted to pin Microsoft Copilot themselves. While not recommended, you can disable the prompt for end users with the same setting.

[Additional Information:]

If you would like to try the updated Microsoft Copilot with enterprise data protection prior to mid-September, a private preview is available (space limited). To apply, please visit here: Private Preview: Microsoft Copilot with enterprise data protection 

For additional information about these changes, please visit the FAQ: Frequently asked questions about Copilot 

For information on how to configure the Windows taskbar:

• Configure the applications pinned to the taskbar – Configure Windows | Microsoft Learn
• Taskbar policy settings – Configure Windows | Microsoft Learn