Microsoft Roadmap, messagecenter en blogs updates van 20-12-2024

Updated December 18, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

In 2023, we introduced Microsoft Teams apps that are compatible with Microsoft Outlook and the Microsoft 365 App (manifest version v1.13 or higher). Before this rollout, admin changes made in the Integrated apps section of the Microsoft 365 admin center would only affect these Teams apps in Outlook and the Microsoft 365 app. Similarly, changes made in the Teams admin center would exclusively affect Teams. Starting in June 2024, we will roll out Unified App Management to streamline the management of these apps across Teams, Outlook and the Microsoft 365 App, so they are consistently available across all supported clients.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 393931.

[When this will happen:]

This rollout will happen in two major phases. Unified App Management can apply only to tenants that have migrated to app centric management in Teams admin center, as communicated in MC688930 (Updated) Teams admin center: App centric management and changes to app permission policies (November 2023).

• Phase 1 | General Availability (Worldwide): We will begin rolling out late-January 2025 (previously mid-December 2024) and expect to complete late March 2025 (previously mid-January 2025). This phase applies to tenants with no modified settings in either the Microsoft 365 admin center (Integrated apps) or the Teams admin center for organization-wide defaults, app deployment, app availability, or block/unblock. No merge rules apply to these tenants, but after this phase, any app management setting configured in either admin centers will apply to all relevant hosts.
• Phase 2: We will update this post with a timeline and more details in March 2025. This phase is applicable to tenants with app settings that have differences between Microsoft 365 admin center (Integrated apps) and Teams admin center, and who have maintained a single app setup policy in Teams that has a modified Installed apps section.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, managing Teams apps that work in Outlook and the Microsoft 365 app was fragmented between the Integrated apps page in the Microsoft 365 admin center for Outlook and the Microsoft 365 app, and the Teams admin center for Teams. This sometimes resulted in different settings for the same app in the two admin centers. With Unified App Management, we will be consolidating app catalog management into a single platform. You will be able to manage apps on the Integrated apps page in the Microsoft 365 admin center or in the Teams admin center, and any changes made in either admin center will synchronize.

What you can expect

1. App catalog enhancements: Apps will start showing hosts where they are available: Teams, Outlook, or the Microsoft 365 app.
2. Organization-wide settings: App availability default settings will now apply to apps used in Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 app.
3. App installs: Apps deployed from the Integrated apps page in Microsoft 365 admin center will be preinstalled in all applicable hosts for the app. Unlike app preinstallation in the Teams App setup policy, new app installs will provide access to the preinstalled apps, similar to deploying the app for Outlook and the Microsoft 365 App. [For more details on app deployment, refer to MC795355 Microsoft Teams admin center: App centric management for app installation and changes to app setup policies (May 2024)].
4. App availability: Managing app availability will apply to all applicable app hosts.
5. App block/unblock: Blocking or unblocking apps will apply to all applicable app hosts.
6. Consolidation of existing app settings: All existing app settings will be unified between Integrated apps (MAC) and Manage apps (TAC) pages. Merge rules can be found in Manage apps that work across Teams, Outlook, and Microsoft 365 | Microsoft Learn. These changes cannot be rolled back.
7. Consolidation report: Phase 2 and 3 tenant administrators will have access to an on-demand report prior to the merging of app settings. This report is designed to help administrators assess the impact of merge rules on their tenant and make any adjustments in advance. We will update this MC post when the report is available.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

We recommend that you review app and tenant settings in the Microsoft 365 admin center and the Teams admin center. If these are managed by different departments in your organization, we recommend conducting these reviews collaboratively.

We also recommend that you review the merge rules and consider their potential impact on apps in your organization. Make any necessary adjustments to unify them in advance, if the merge rules in this message do not align with your expectations.

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

Updated December 18, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon for Microsoft Purview compliance portal | Communication Compliance: A notification banner designed to enhance transparency will alert users when keywords embedded in hidden content (such as hyperlinks or encoded strings) trigger a compliance policy match. With this rollout, investigators will be able to quickly recognize that some or all keyword matches are not immediately visible in the main content body, saving time and ensuring a more efficient triage experience.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 417483.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, users and investigators are not notified if policy matches occur for hidden text.

After this rollout, users will be notified if any policy matches in a message are concealed and not readily discernible in the main content.

This feature is 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. You may want to notify your admins about this change and update any relevant documentation.

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

Updated December 19, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

The Loop app now provides a personal workspace to all users, which is shared with Copilot Pages. This personal workspace is a user-owned SharePoint Embedded container, one per user. Governance, lifecycle management and compliance processes are similar to that user’s OneDrive. The existing Ideas workspace will begin functioning as a shared Loop workspace because it is not a user-owned container.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 422727 and 422729.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 422727: The personal workspace is a user-owned SharePoint Embedded container and follows similar governance, lifecycle management and compliance processes to the user’s OneDrive, details about departure and storage can be found here.

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 422729: The existing Ideas workspace, while positioned in the product as a personal workspace, uses the shared Loop workspace infrastructure and is not managed with the user account. As a result, with the arrival of the truly personal workspace, the existing Ideas workspace will begin functioning as a shared Loop workspace in the user’s experience.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There is nothing you need to do to prepare. These changes will roll to your tenant automatically.

If you wish to disable the creation of Loop workspaces, you can configure it using the admin policies found here and here.

Updated December 19, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Microsoft Loop – Common Admin Management Tasks Enabled for all new Loop workspaces, and then all existing Loop workspaces.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 421613

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Admins can manage membership, ownership, deletion, and restoration of Loop workspaces in the SharePoint Embedded admin center or PowerShell.

Changes to membership, ownership, and container deletions, and restorations made to Loop workspaces created after December 2024 will be visible in the Loop experience beginning in December 2024.

Changes to membership, ownership, and container deletions, and restorations made to Loop workspaces created before December 2024 will be visible in the Loop experience by March 2025.

You can read more about the existing admin capabilities:

• Manage SharePoint Embedded containers in SharePoint Admin Center
• SharePoint Embedded container management in PowerShell

[What you need to do to prepare:]

There is nothing you need to do to prepare. When the feature rolls out, the functionality will become available in your tenant.

Updated November 18, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Coming soon to Microsoft Teams: With the Best practice configurations monitoring dashboard in the Teams admin center, Teams admins will be able to monitor the conformance of your tenant to the Microsoft recommended best practices for an optimal collaboration experience on Teams.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 421185.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Ensuring the quality and reliability of user’s collaboration experience using Teams is crucial (specially the meeting-related experiences). Microsoft recommends best practices to ensure that organizations have an optimal environment setup for collaboration.

The Best Practice Configurations monitoring dashboard will assist admins in understanding their tenant’s non-conformance with these best practices, the overall impact, and how to comply with these recommendations.

You’ll find the Best practice configurations dashboard in the Meetings section of the Teams admin center. In this release, we’ll monitor and highlight non-conformance in three key areas:

• Update out-of-date client versions
• Enable the right ports and protocols
• Implement split tunnelling for VPNs

If a location does not adhere to these best practices, it will be highlighted on the dashboard. A widget on the main dashboard will also spotlight non-conforming practices. Also, a list of subnets/IP addresses will be displayed by city, showing the extent of non-conformance for each location. This list can be exported to share with relevant teams, and recommendations for addressing these issues will be available on the same page.

As these issues are resolved, the trend of non-conforming locations will be tracked to help monitor progress.

This new dashboard will be available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Administrators do not need to do anything to prepare for these changes. They will take effect automatically.

You may want to notify your admins about this change and update any relevant documentation.

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

Updated December 18, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience

Microsoft Copilot in Microsoft Viva Insights simplifies the query-building process for analysts by recommending templates, metrics, filters, and attributes relevant to their analysis. After this rollout, analysts can view and build their reports more efficiently using Copilot’s assistive features. Licenses required: Viva Insights or Microsoft Viva Suite.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 399924.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

This feature is available for analysts in the advanced insights app in Viva Insights. Analysts typically use pre-built templates or queries to investigate and answer specific questions about collaboration, workplace activities, and Copilot adoption and usage in your organization.

Copilot in Viva Insights can assist users in choosing relevant template, metrics, filters and attributes for their analysis. For example, if users want to understand more about how employees use Copilot in your organization, they can ask Copilot in natural language, “How does Copilot usage compare across organizations?” In response, Copilot will suggest using the Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption report or a Custom person query. Users can also use Copilot to add or modify metrics, filters, and attributes for a query.

Copilot with prompts on the Create analysis page:

Copilot suggests relevant templates and custom queries in response to a user’s request:

Copilot helps build a custom query with relevant metrics, attributes, and filters:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

This feature is on by default. If you do not want the users to access Copilot, you can disable this feature from the Microsoft Admin portal. Learn more: Manage Microsoft 365 Copilot settings | Microsoft Learn

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: Set up your queries using Copilot | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)

Updated December 18, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Starting in late-December, Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft 365 Copilot users signed in with an Entra account will be able to upload images in both Work and Web copilot and ask Copilot questions about the image, such as for Copilot to analyze or describe it. Users will be able to take pictures using their mobile cameras or upload images directly to Copilot from their devices. This functionality will be available when using Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot from following locations:

• Microsoft 365 app (Web, desktop, mobile)
• Outlook app (Web, desktop, mobile) 
• Teams (Web, desktop, mobile) 

 [When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

With these enhancements, Microsoft 365 Copilot will now understand non-animated images and will have support for major image types. Copilot will do its best to interpret the image, but the quality and content of the image can affect responses.

This feature will roll out to all endpoints and users will be able to use it without any tenant level configuration support. Any controls in place to limit the availability of Copilot for users will be honored.

Updated December 18, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

We’re excited to announce updates to the Microsoft Viva admin landing page and the Feature Access Management experience in the Microsoft 365 admin center (MAC).

[When this will happen:]

Viva admin landing page | General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): We will begin rolling out late December 2024 (previously early December) and expect to complete by early January 2025 (previously late December).

New user interface for Feature Access Management in the MAC | General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): We will begin rolling out late January 2025 and expect to complete by early February 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

1. The Viva admin landing page will feature tabs, making it easier for admins to navigate and access important admin settings like organizational data uploads and feature access controls. Admins will benefit from a more intuitive layout, making it easier to navigate various settings directly from the MAC. Learn more: Set up Microsoft Viva | Microsoft Learn (documentation will be updated before rollout)

Updated Viva admin landing page:

2. Through the new Feature Access management user interface, admins will be able to manage feature access settings directly in the MAC. Feature access management allows admins to use access policies to manage which users can access specific features in Viva apps, so you can tailor your deployments to meet your local regulatory or business requirements. Previously, these policies could only be managed with Microsoft PowerShell cmdlets. After this rollout, admins can choose to use either the MAC or PowerShell to manage feature access. Existing policies set for an organization will persist and can be managed in both places. Learn more: Microsoft Viva – Feature access management | Microsoft Learn (documentation will be updated before rollout)

New user interface for Feature Access Management:

These changes 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 or after the rollout. Review your current configuration to determine the impact for your organization.

Updated December 18, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

The room audio auto-detect and pre-select feature for Microsoft Teams BYOD rooms (released October 2024) will soon activate the video component of composite audio-video peripherals as the selected camera in Teams. This message applies to Teams for Windows desktops and Teams for Mac desktops.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 469496.

[When this will happen:]

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

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

When a user selects an audio peripheral in the Room Audio option on the meeting prejoin screen, if that peripheral has a video component, that video component will be used as the video device for the Teams meeting.

This change will be available by default.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Inform your users that this new behavior will be coming so they are aware that the room’s camera will be used if there is one.

Updated December 18, 2024: The experience for attendees to verify their email with OTP prior to joining meetings is available only for meetings created by organizers that has a Teams premium license. However, the new meeting option to require verification will be available to all meeting organizers without Teams Premium license as well, for these meetings, attendees can join meeting after verifying with their TFL account or Entra account.

After this rollout, Microsoft Teams meeting organizers will have a new meeting option to enable and require unverified (aka anonymous) participants joining meetings to verify their email addresses with a one-time password (OTP) verification code before joining the meeting. Tenant admins will have a new meeting policy to manage and control this setting in the Teams admin center. This message applies to Teams on Windows desktop, Teams on Mac desktop, Teams on the web, and Teams for iOS/Android.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 418125.

 [When this will happen:]

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out mid-January 2024 and expect to complete by late January 2025.

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Tenants where the Anonymous users can join a meeting setting is currently disabled will be affected by this update. In the Teams admin center, a meeting policy controls whether anonymous users can join meetings. If this setting is turned off, users without an MSA (Microsoft Account) or Microsoft Entra account are currently unable to join meetings. With the introduction of this new feature, we are enabling an additional option for unverified (anonymous) users to join meetings without requiring an MSA or Entra account.

This change will be available by default.

Admin controls: Admins will have a new meeting policy called Anonymous users can join a meeting after verifying by email code that complements the existing meeting policy where tenant admins already have the control to enable Anonymous users can join a meeting (unverified): 

When admins choose to turn on both the meeting policies for the users in the organizations, they leave the choice of requiring email verification to the meeting organizers via a new meeting option that will be available for them.

Meeting Organizer Controls: When scheduling meetings, meeting organizers will now have a new meeting option called Require unverified participants to verify their info before joining that will be set to default off if you have enabled unverified joins. Organizers can choose to require participants to verify themselves by turning on this meeting option.

Participant Experience: When organizers choose to require unverified participants from joining meetings, participants will be required to authenticate themselves when attempting to join the meeting. Participants can use credentials from a Microsoft work account, Microsoft school account, or personal Microsoft account for authentication. Participants without any of these Microsoft accounts will need to verify by entering their email address, and then participants will receive a one-time passcode for verification.

Participants who verify the same email address that the meeting invitation was sent to will be allowed to join the meeting directly if the Lobby bypass setting permits invited participants. Conversely, participants verifying with a different email address will be placed in the lobby and labeled as Email verified:

The Email verified tag and the email address participants entered for verification will be shown on the profile card of the participant in the lobby, meeting roster, and meeting chat:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

For tenants where the Anonymous users can join meetings option is disabled, admins should assess the impact of the email OTP verification feature and update the meeting policy settings accordingly to suit their organization’s requirements. This new feature introduces an additional way for unverified (anonymous) users to join meetings without needing an MSA or Entra account.

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. 

Python in Excel allows you to bring the capabilities of Python directly into the Microsoft Excel grid. In September 2024, Python in Excel with standard compute became generally available to all eligible users with access to Excel for Windows. With this upcoming rollout, Python in Excel will also be generally available in Microsoft Excel for the web for all eligible users.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 471001.

[When this will happen:]

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

[How this will affect your organization:]

Before this rollout, Python in Excel is only available to eligible users with access to Excel for Windows. After this rollout, eligible users with access to Excel for the web will be able to add Python formulas to their workbooks without any installation required. These Python formulas will be run by Excel in a secure container on the Microsoft Cloud with enterprise-level security and with standard compute. With this release, eligible Excel for the web users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot license will also be able to use the Copilot in Excel with Python feature, enabling them to leverage the capabilities of AI and Python in Excel for deeper data analysis.

Note: A Python in Excel add-on license gives users premium Python compute for faster calculation times for more powerful data analysis. Some premium Python compute will be included in each user’s Microsoft 365 subscription each month, giving users limited access to faster calculation speeds. After they have used all of their included premium compute, they can continue to use the Python in Excel feature with standard Python compute or choose to purchase or request a Python in Excel add-on license from in-app prompts.

If you would like users in your organization to have full access to premium Python compute, you can purchase and assign them a Python in Excel add-on license in the Microsoft 365 admin center. The Python in Excel add-on license is also offered as a self-service purchased product, which means that eligible end users will be able to request a license or purchase a license through in-app prompts in Excel for the web. Learn more about self-service purchases.

If you have disabled self-service purchases in your tenant, the end user will instead be able to submit a license request to you. These grouped notifications will appear in the Microsoft 365 admin center and you can manage these requests in the Requests tab on the Licenses page. Learn more: Manage self-service license requests in the Microsoft 365 admin center | Microsoft Learn.

The Python in Excel feature is enabled by default.

An example of Python formulas in an Excel workbook:

[What you need to do to prepare:]

• To learn more about Python in Excel, please review the Python in Excel documentation. For specific information around data security, visit: Data security and Python in Excel – Microsoft Support
• As an admin, you still maintain visibility and control over the Python in Excel add-on licenses in your tenant. You can view licenses purchased by users in the Microsoft 365 admin center at Billing > Your Products. You will be able to take control of licenses purchased by users and manage them as you would any other license in your tenant.
• Learn more about how admins can manage self-service purchase for the Python in Excel add-on, including how to opt out: Manage self-service license requests in the Microsoft 365 admin center | 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.

Coming soon for Microsoft Outlook for iOS/Android: New built-in report buttons in version > 4.2446. Admins can control the appearance and behavior of these buttons that allow users to report emails as phishing / junk / not junk from the User Reported setting page in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal (security.microsoft.com). Admins can also customize where messages get reported to (reporting mailbox, Microsoft, or both) and what the user sees both before and after reporting messages from these buttons.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 371383.

[When this will happen:]

General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High): We began rolling out in early December 2024 and expect to complete by late January 2025.

[How this will affect your organization:]

Information to keep in mind:

• Microsoft OWA (Outlook on the Web) and the new Microsoft Outlook for Windows have had this functionality since November 2022. This rollout to iOS/Android does not change or affect that functionality.
• Classic Microsoft Outlook for Windows client has had this functionality in current channel since August 2024. Learn more: MC841229 (Updated) Classic Microsoft Outlook for Windows: New reporting buttons integrated with Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (published July 2024, updated October 2024).
• Microsoft Outlook for Mac released this functionality in September 2024.
• If you have turned off the reporting feature in the Microsoft 365 Defender User reported settings page or are using a third-party add-in, the report buttons in Outlook for Android/iOS won’t be visible.
• The Microsoft reporting add-in (the Microsoft report message add-in and Microsoft phishing add-in) will be supported till further notice. The future goal is to have a consistent button reporting experience across all Outlook platforms. If you are using Microsoft reporting add-ins in Outlook for iOS/Android, your users will see two reporting experiences: one from the built-in Outlook buttons (added by this rollout) and one from the add-in. Both options will behave the same for users (except for the newly customizable pop-ups) and the reported messages will end up in the same place, causing minimal disruption.
• The selections you make on the user reported settings page will determine the reporting experience for your users (whether they choose the add-in or built-in reporting option in Outlook). Either option will report to the same place (Microsoft, custom mailbox, or both) based on your User reported settings.
• Like OWA and new Outlook for Windows, the built-in reporting button in Outlook for iOS/Android supports reporting from shared and delegate mailboxes.

This change is 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. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.

No action is required form you after this rollout because your current settings in the User reported settings page will not be changed.

Learn more

• Report phishing and suspicious emails in Outlook for admins – Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)
• User reported settings – Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | Microsoft Learn (will be updated before rollout)

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 included in the upload (and is not restricted to users with 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.

Microsoft Search in Bing, the work search experience available on Bing.com, will be deprecated, such that the last day of availability is on March 31, 2025. This change is being made as we streamline search experiences and focus on enhancing core productivity tools.

The Microsoft Edge for Business address bar and the Windows search box will continue to support work search with some adjustments, which are detailed below.

Microsoft Search in Bing will no longer be available, with changes as follows:

• Bing.com will no longer show work search results. Consequently, there will not be a dedicated page of work results and users’ work profile will no longer appear on Bing.com
• Search boxes you’ve configured to point to Microsoft Search in Bing will no longer provide work results.

Edge for Business address bar and Windows search box will continue to support work search with some adjustments, including:

• Edge for Business address bar will no longer return work search results on a Bing.com page but will continue to provide suggested results within the address bar. Work search for documents will be available initially, with additional content types available as quickly as possible.
• Windows search box will see the removal of organization branding and the “work” tab but will continue to support work search. Search for documents will be available initially, with additional content types available as quickly as possible. With these changes, users will see some UX changes in the Windows search box.

As before, the core Microsoft Search experience remains accessible through Office.com, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft365.com.

An FAQ and further details will be available mid-January at https://aka.ms/MSBFAQ, which will be updated regularly.

[When the Change Will Occur:]

The last day of availability of Microsoft Search in Bing is March 31, 2025.

[How this will affect your organization]

For organizations using Microsoft Search in Bing, users will need to transition to using Microsoft Search through Office.com, SharePoint Online, or Microsoft365.com for work search.

Users who are accustomed to using the Edge for Business address bar and the Windows search box can continue to conduct work searches through these endpoints, with the expectation that there will be some adjustment in these experiences after the deprecation date. (For details on changes, please refer to the FAQ link above, which will be available mid-January 2025.)

There may be earlier impact to a small set of users prior to March 31, 2025, where they temporarily cannot use work search in Bing.com, embedded search boxes pointing to Microsoft Search in Bing, the Edge for Business address bar, or Windows search box, as we begin testing the deprecation experience. In all cases, Microsoft Search remains accessible through Office.com, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft365.com.

[What you need to do to prepare:]

Customers should prepare to stop using Microsoft Search in Bing by March 31, 2025, and transition to using Microsoft Search through Office.com, SharePoint Online, or Microsoft365.com. It is recommended to inform users about the upcoming change and the alternatives available.

Adding your preferred entry point from this set to favorites or favorites bar in Edge for Business may be a helpful alternative pathway. Admins can easily set favorites in Edge for Business for their organization, please see details here. 

Additionally, users can continue to use the Edge for Business address bar and the Windows search box, with some changes expected.

For admins who wish to set their own deprecation date prior to March 31, 2025, you can turn off Microsoft Search in Bing by going to the Microsoft 365 admin center > Settings > Search & Intelligence.

When the FAQ becomes available, customers will be notified through an update of this Message center post.

Your Microsoft Intune account has been updated to the latest service build.

[How does this affect my organization:]

You will see the service release number updated in the Tenant Status blade of the Intune console soon. We have introduced some changes that we are excited for you to try out.

[What to do to prepare for this change:]

Click additional information below to learn more about what’s new in this service release. We will continue to update the What’s new page with any features that are released between now and the next monthly service update. Learn more by reviewing features highlighted in the latest Intune What’s new 2412 (December) blog and how the Intune service updates each month is described in the Microsoft Intune Service Updates blog. 

Additional Information:

Intune What’s new

Intune What’s new 2412 (December) blog

Staying up to date on Intune new features, service changes, and service health

We will retire the Tags feature from the Microsoft 365 app, which affects www.microsoft365.com and www.office.com, as well as the Windows app for Microsoft 365 (Office).

Before the retirement, users can access the Tags feature from the Home page of the Microsoft 365 app under the Quick access section and on the My content page.

The retirement will start January 6, 2025, and end by January 10, 2025. After the Tags feature is retired from Microsoft 365 apps, users will not be able to view existing tags or apply new tags.

We are committed to ensuring that existing workflows remain unaffected. As an alternative, we suggest using the Favorites feature, which helps mark important content for easy access.

This change will happen automatically by the specified date. No admin action is required.