Are you keeping up with Microsoft updates? The Microsoft Mondays: Microsoft Service Updates series from Total Solutions is here for your needs, and remember that Total Solutions also provides tailored, expert guidance during our consulting process. We are highlighting a few of the Microsoft announced upcoming updates from August:
- Bing Chat Enterprise service plan to be added to Microsoft 365 subscription
- New Stream (on SharePoint) web part release
- Microsoft Teams: New Channels Experience (Updated)
- Collaborative Meeting Notes (Updated)
Keep an eye out for Microsoft Mondays for your Microsoft updates or speak with our technical team for your Microsoft needs.
*Updates posted here originally posted by Microsoft in the Microsoft 365 Message Center
Bing Chat Enterprise service plan to be added to Microsoft 365 subscription
[MC665935 · Published Aug 8, 2023]: As communicated a few weeks ago in MC649341 (July ’23), Bing Chat Enterprise (BCE) is rolling out to eligible Microsoft 365 tenants in Preview. BCE will be turned on by default in late August (previously mid-August).
As part of this roll out, your Microsoft 365 subscriptions are being updated with a new service plan: Bing Chat Enterprise. This service plan enables access to Bing Chat Enterprise when your users are signed into bing.com/chat and Microsoft Edge using their work accounts.
When will this happen:
The Bing Chat Enterprise service plan update to your Microsoft 365 subscription will begin to roll out in early September and is expected to complete in the subsequent weeks.
How will this affect your organization:
Once the Bing Chat Enterprise service plan is added to your Microsoft 365 subscription, your organization will be able control access to Bing Chat Enterprise at the user level.
What you need to do to prepare:
There is no action required unless you wish to opt out of Bing Chat Enterprise prior to it being turned on by default in late August:
- Use the link: https://aka.ms/TurnOffBCE
- If you opt out, Bing Chat Enterprise will not be turned on by default in late August.
Additional information:
- Learn more about Bing Chat Enterprise: https://aka.ms/BingChatEnterprise.
For further details, please see our technical documentation: Bing Chat Enterprise documentation
New Stream (on SharePoint) web part release
[MC666623 · Published Aug 9, 2023] This is an important message for customers who publish videos to SharePoint Pages and news posts. As noted in Message Center post MC561187, the Stream (Classic) webpart in SharePoint will be retired on August 15, 2023.
The Stream (on SharePoint) web part will support configuration of a single video and multiple videos for videos stored in OneDrive or SharePoint.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 124800
When this will happen:
The Stream (on SharePoint) webpart will begin its general availability roll out in mid-August 2023, and we expect the rollout to complete by mid-September 2023.
How this will affect your organization:
Your organization will not be able to use Stream (Classic) webpart after August 15, 2023.
All existing SharePoint pages and news posts that were built using Stream (Classic) webpart will continue to function as usual. Please follow this documentation for detailed information for videos post migration: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/stream/streamnew/migration-details
Before availability of the new Stream (on SharePoint) web part, you can currently use video eligible webparts such as “File and Media”, “Hero”, “Highlighted content” and “List” webparts to publish videos/playlists from Stream (on SharePoint) to SharePoint Pages.
Post availability of this web part, we would recommend you use it for publishing single video and multiple videos from a folder and continue using “List” web part for publishing a playlist to SharePoint Pages.
What you need to do to prepare:
Please follow this documentation for detailed timelines and video publishing guidance on the new Stream.
Microsoft Teams: New Channels Experience (Updated)
[MC550081 · Published May 3, 2023 · Last updated Aug 12, 2023]: Updated August 12, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.
A new channels experience in Microsoft Teams has been built with an intuitive design that allows teams to focus and stay on tasks, bring everyone up to speed, and actively engage in real-time. The following features will be rolling out:
- The compose box and recent posts will appear at the top of the page. It’ll now be much easier to start a new post, keep up with the latest conversations and participate – giving users the confidence that they’ve not missed anything.
- Every post is now a true conversation that users can focus on. Users can navigate to a conversation view that makes the discussion more engaging and synchronous, just like a chat. Users can also pop out the post, keep an eye on the discussion, while continuing to work on other topics.
- A streamlined information pane will include all the important contextual information like channel’s members and pinned posts so new team members can quickly on-board and for all members to find the information they need, right in the channel.
- Pin posts to make it easy for everyone to know what’s important in the channel and quickly reference it.
- Simplified badging is making it easier for users to understand when there are new unread activities in teams. In addition, the simplified design helps users focus on the specific channels which requires the most attention, like channels in which the user was @mentioned.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 91683
When this will happen:
Targeted Release: Started rolling out in May and is expected to complete in late August 2023 (previously early July).
Standard and GCC: We will begin rollout in mid-September 2023 (previously early August) and expect to complete rollout by late October 2023 (previously mid-August).
GCC-H: We will begin rollout in late October 2023 (previously mid-August) and expect to complete rollout by early November 2023 (previously mid-September).
DoD: We will begin rolling out in early November 2023 and expect to complete rollout by late November 2023.
How this will affect your organization: Users in your organization will not need to make any changes and will get the new channels experience by default.
What you need to do to prepare: Admins will not need to make any changes.
Collaborative Meeting Notes (Updated)
[MC538385 · Published Apr 6, 2023 · Last updated Aug 9, 2023] Updated August 9, 2023: We have updated the content below with additional information. Thank you for your patience.
We will not be rolling this feature to customers in GCC at this time. We will communicate via Message center when we are ready to proceed. Thank you for your patience.
Teams across Microsoft are coming together to provide tools that help make meetings more effective. More specifically, we’re improving how you track what you want to discuss (Agenda), what you discussed/decided (Notes) and what you need to follow up on (Follow-up Tasks). These capabilities are now integrated into the end-to-end meeting experience in Teams, Loop, Planner, To Do, Office.com and OneDrive for Business.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 101509
When this will happen:
Preview Release: We will begin rolling out late May (previously late April) and expect to complete by early June (previously mid-May).
Standard Release: We will begin rolling out mid-June (previously late May) and expect to complete by early August 2023 (previously mid-July).
How this will affect your organization: Users within your tenant will see a Notes button during meetings that invokes these new capabilities. The meeting notes will be shown on the right pane of the meeting window with the ability to open them in the browser for more room or on a second monitor. Participants can collaborate in real time, create an agenda, take notes and add tasks. When participants are assigned a task in the meeting, they will also receive an email notification and it will be synced with the Planner and To Do apps.
Meeting organizers will also see an ability to add Collaborative notes before meetings, to prepare by adding agendas or other materials in one place.
After the meeting, Collaborative notes will remain accessible for all participants on the Teams calendar meeting details page. The experience is a Loop component, so they can be copied easily out of the meeting and into chats, group chats, emails and other documents. This makes prepping and follow-up even more seamless.
What you need to do to prepare:
Nothing is required to prepare. This capability will be enabled by default when it rolls out.
Important Notes:
- This release removes the previous Teams meeting notes solution. Users can still download the previous wiki notes locally following these instructions: Access wiki meeting notes in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Support.
- Collaborative notes is not available for EDU customers. The removal of wiki notes will still apply to EDU.
- The new Collaborative notes file will generate a Company Shareable Link (CSL) by default.
You can manage this feature via SharePoint PowerShell with:
Set-SPOTenant -IsCollabMeetingNotesFluidEnabled (boolean) You can read more about admin controls here: Manage Loop experiences (Loop app and Loop components) in SharePoint.
Check out previous Microsoft Updates that Total Solutions has posted here -> Microsoft Updates Archives – Total Solutions Inc.
