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 February:
- Yammer is evolving into Viva Engage
- Take Action on Meeting Category Insights in the Viva Insights app in Teams and on the web
- Microsoft Teams: Join Meetings from Calendar View on Apple CarPlay
- New Sensitivity Labeling Bar in Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise
- M365 Apps on windows support new compliance configuration for scoping labels based on files vs. emails
- Self-service trial experience available for Viva Goals
- Authenticator number matching to be enabled for all Microsoft Authenticator users (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
Yammer is evolving into Viva Engage
[MC514981 · Published Feb 13, 2023 · Last updated Feb 17, 2023]: Updated February 17, 2023: Microsoft has updated the content below with additional information. Thank you for your patience.
Today Microsoft is announcing their intention to rebrand Yammer into Viva Engage in order to provide a consistent and delightful experience to our customers. This change will happen across all existing Yammer surfaces– including web, mobile, and integrations (Embed, SharePoint and Outlook) and will occur throughout 2023. In the coming months you can expect Yammer to become Viva Engage through the update of brand elements like logo, app icon and name.
When this will happen:
The first stage of this rebrand happened last year with the rebranding of the Yammer Communities app for Teams into Viva Engage. The rest of rebrand will occur incrementally, starting with the mobile apps (iOS & Android) and the Communities app for Outlook updating their app icons and name in March 2023. Microsoft will communicate other endpoints like the web and embed experiences as Microsoft makes progress. Microsoft will continue sending message center alerts and provide details and resources to help your organization understand, prepare, and communicate these changes.
In late February, as Microsoft prepares for the Yammer mobile app changes, Microsoft will add an in-app banner with relevant information around the switch. At the same time, the app name in the Google Play and App Store will be updated to “Yammer (Viva Engage)” and there will be no change to the installed app name or icon.
In mid-to-late March, the installed apps will update to the “Viva Engage” name and icon, updates may be automatic depending on your settings.
The app name in the Google Play and App Store will be updated to “Viva Engage (Yammer)” and the icon will be updated to the Viva Engage icon. Search by “Yammer” will continue to display the app as the top result.
Notifications will be updated to the Viva Engage name and icon, a reference to Yammer will remain until later this year.
All Yammer references in the app will be updated to Viva Engage, and there will be a pop up informing the change as well as a banner directing users to the public blog post about the rebrand with more information around what’s changing and the timeline.
How this will affect your organization: There will be no impact to the existing profile, posts, bookmarks, etc. All rebranding updates don’t require additional actions; changes will be automatic. Outside of branding changes, there are no changes to the features, capabilities and investments for Microsoft 365 customers. You will continue to experience and benefit from the power of Viva Engage just as you did with Yammer.
Take Action on Meeting Category Insights in the Viva Insights app in Teams and on the web
[MC516906 · Published Feb 17, 2023]: Categories in Outlook and Teams allow users to easily tag and label calendar events. Users can get insights on the time they spend per meeting category in the Viva Insights app in Teams. Using meeting category insights, they can see how their meeting time is distributed (percentage breakdown), how that has changed (meeting trends), and details about each of their meetings contributing to their categories (meeting details). An upcoming update to this feature will allow users to take actions on these meetings to align their time spent in meetings with their goals. These actions include viewing/editing meeting invites, cancelling, declining, and categorizing/recategorizing.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 117374
When will this happen:
Microsoft will begin rolling out in early March and expect to complete rollout by late March.
How will this affect your organization: Users with a Viva Insights subscription are eligible for meeting category insights, including the upcoming release of actions. Users who have not categorized any meetings between the last 3 months and next 4 weeks will not be able to view meeting category insights in the Viva Insights app but will have access to them once they categorize any meetings in this time period. Users without a Viva Insights subscription will not be able to view meeting category insights.
Users will be able to:
- View and edit their meeting invites – available for all meetings
- Cancel meetings or appointments they organized – available for single-instance meetings in the future or recurring meetings with at least 1 future instance
- Decline meetings to which they were invited – available for single-instance meetings in the future or recurring meetings with at least 1 future instance
- Categorize or recategorize meetings – available for all meetings, including those that have already been categorized
What do you need to do to prepare:
Viva Insights documentation will be updated in sync with this release: Effective meetings in Viva Insights | Microsoft Learn. Review and assess impact for your organization. Consider updating documentation as appropriate.
To categorize meetings in Outlook to access these insights, see the following: Assign a color category to a calendar appointment, meeting, or event
Microsoft Teams: Join Meetings from Calendar View on Apple CarPlay
[MC516905 · Published Feb 17, 2023]: Users will soon be able to view upcoming meetings and join meetings via the new meetings view on Apple CarPlay with Teams after connecting iPhone to vehicles that support Apple CarPlay.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 114306
When this will happen:
Production and GCC: Microsoft will begin rollout in mid-March and expect to complete rollout by late March.
GCC-High and DoD: Microsoft will begin rollout in early May and expect to complete by early June.
How this will affect your organization:
Users in your organization will be able to view upcoming meetings and join meetings via the new meetings view on Apple CarPlay.
Tapping the Teams icon will bring users to the new calendar view where they can see upcoming meetings for that day, see progress bars indicating meeting progress, and an icon on the right indicating Teams online meetings that they can join via CarPlay.
Users can choose to join a meeting by tapping a meeting event.
What you need to do to prepare:
No specific action is required as this will be available to all Teams users and not gated by an admin policy. For additional information, please visit this page.
New Sensitivity Labeling Bar in Microsoft 365 Apps for Enterprise
[MC515530 · Published Feb 15, 2023]: For organizations who rely on sensitivity labels from Microsoft Purview to protect their documents, a new feature is rolling out that makes it easier for end users to see or change sensitivity labels for files and emails in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook on PC.
The new sensitivity bar is conveniently located in your document’s name or your email’s subject line, making it easier to stay aware of your content’s sensitivity. This bar provides an at-a-glance, familiar, and actionable indicator of the content’s sensitivity label.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 88517
When this will happen:
Preview (Word, Excel, PowerPoint): Already available in Current Channel Preview.
Preview (Outlook): Microsoft will begin rolling out in mid-February.
Standard Release (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook): Microsoft will begin rolling out in mid-March and expect to complete rollout by late March.
How this will affect your organization:
End users will see the new sensitivity bar added in their apps, using the same sensitivity labels and policies already defined for the user. If sensitivity labels are configured with a label color, this will be shown alongside the label name.
What you need to do to prepare:
The sensitivity bar will be enabled automatically for all users who have sensitivity labels published to them. Admins can configure an advanced label policy setting “HideBarByDefault” to minimize the amount of space used by the sensitivity bar. Please refer to the blog for screenshots and user scenarios.
M365 Apps on windows support new compliance configuration for scoping labels based on files vs. emails
[MC514980 · Published Feb 13, 2023]: Word, Excel, PowerPoint clients and Outlook email clients will support admin setting to have a different set of sensitivity labels.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 99939
When this will happen:
Public Preview: Microsoft will begin rolling out late February 2023 and expect to complete by mid-March 2023.
Current Channel Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out late March 2023 and expect to complete by mid-April 2023.
How this will affect your organization:
By default, no impact on your organization. If you think your organization have the needs of configure some labels only for file, and some label only for email, please leverage the set-label cmdlet, or information protection admin UX to configure. Then Word, Excel, PowerPoint will only show those labels with file scope, and Outlook will only show those labels with email scope.
What you need to do to prepare: Please refer the Information protection admin configuration to see how you could configure this.
Self-service trial experience available for Viva Goals
[MC516356 · Published Feb 16, 2023]: In March, individual users in your organization will be able to sign up for a self-service trial of Viva Goals from the website. This self-service experience allows individuals and teams to try Viva Goals with no requirement to input payment information, while providing complete visibility and control to their Microsoft 365 admin.
Previously, only admin-initiated trials of Viva Goals were available, which were limited to one trial per tenant. Customers told us they wanted a way for multiple departments across their organization to try Viva Goals at the same time. To meet this demand, we’re launching self-service trials.
Self-service trials will allow different teams within the tenant organization to start experiencing Viva Goals simultaneously.
When this will happen:
Microsoft will begin rolling out in mid-March and expect to complete by mid-April.
How this affects your organization:
Self-service trial licenses will be a part of your Microsoft organizational tenant, and you will be able to manage these licenses like other Microsoft subscriptions. Use of trials will be governed by the Microsoft Product Terms, like other Microsoft services, and your organization’s volume licensing agreement. You will be able to cancel or reassign trial licenses at any time.
You will also fully control whether trials are converted to paid subscriptions. Users won’t need to input payment information when signing up. If a user would like to convert to a paid license, they must work with you directly to do so.
What you can do to prepare:
Review our updated self-service purchase and trial documentation here. We’ve added important information about the way trials work, the data that is collected, and the terms that apply. Learn more about managing self-service trials, including how to opt out, here. To learn more about how to use Viva Goals, please visit our detailed learning resources.
Users can get started on the trial here.
Authenticator number matching to be enabled for all Microsoft Authenticator users (Updated)
[MC468492 · Published Nov 18, 2022 · Last updated Feb 16, 2023]: Updated February 16, 2023: Microsoft Authenticator app’s number matching feature has been Generally Available since Nov 2022! If you have not already leveraged the rollout controls (via Azure Portal Admin UX and MSGraph APIs) to smoothly deploy number matching for users of Microsoft Authenticator push notifications, Microsoft highly encourages you to do so. Microsoft had previously announced that Microsoft will remove the admin controls and enforce the number match experience tenant-wide for all users of Microsoft Authenticator push notifications starting February 27, 2023. After listening to customers, Microsoft will extend the availability of the rollout controls for a few more weeks. Organizations can continue to use the existing rollout controls until May 8, 2023, to deploy number matching in their organizations. Microsoft services will start enforcing the number matching experience for all users of Microsoft Authenticator push notifications after May 8th, 2023. Microsoft will also remove the rollout controls for number matching after that date.
Please note that Microsoft has changed the expected behavior for NPS extension to be even more admin friendly. NPS versions 1.2.2216.1+ will be released once Microsoft starts to enable number matching for all Authenticator users. These NPS versions will automatically prefer OTP based sign-ins over traditional push notifications with the Authenticator app. An admin can choose to disable this behavior and fallback to traditional push notifications with Approve/Deny by setting the registry key OVERRIDE_NUMBER_MATCHING_WITH_OTP Value = FALSE. Previous NPS extension versions will not automatically switch Authenticator push notification authentications to OTP based authentications. Please refer to the NPS extension section of the number match documentation for further information.
When this will happen:
Beginning February 27, 2023
How this affects your organization:
To prevent accidental approvals, admins can require users to enter a number displayed on the sign-in screen when approving an MFA request in the Microsoft Authenticator app. This feature is critical to protecting against MFA fatigue attacks which are on the rise.
Another way to reduce accidental approvals is to show users additional context in Authenticator notifications. Admins can now selectively choose to enable the following:
- Application context: Show users which application they are signing into.
- Geographic location context: Show users their sign-in location based on the IP address of the device they are signing into.
Number match behavior in different scenarios after 27-February 2023:
- Authentication flows will require users to do number match when using the Microsoft Authenticator app. If the user is using a version of the Authenticator app that doesn’t support number match, their authentication will fail. Please make sure upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Authenticator (App Store and Google Play Store) to use it for sign-in.
- Self Service Password Reset (SSPR) and combined registration flows will also require number match when users are using the Microsoft Authenticator app.
- ADFS adapter will require number matching on versions of Windows Server that support number matching. On earlier versions, users will continue to see the “Approve/Deny” experience and won’t see number matching till you upgrade.
- NPS extension versions beginning 1.2.2131.2 will require users to do number matching after 27-February 2023. Because the NPS extension can’t show a number, the user will be asked to enter a One-Time Passcode (OTP). The user must have an OTP authentication method (e.g. Microsoft Authenticator app, software tokens etc.) registered to see this behavior. If the user doesn’t have an OTP method registered, they’ll continue to get the Approve/Deny experience. You can create a registry key that overrides this behavior and prompts users with Approve/Deny. More information can be found in the number matching documentation.
- Apple Watch – Apple Watch will remain unsupported for number matching. Microsoft recommends you uninstall the Microsoft Authenticator Apple Watch app because you have to approve notifications on your phone.
What you can do to prepare:
If customers don’t enable number match for all Microsoft Authenticator push notifications prior to May 8, 2023, users may experience inconsistent sign-ins while the services are rolling out this change. To ensure consistent behavior for all users, Microsoft highly recommends you enable number match for Microsoft Authenticator push notifications in advance.
Learn more at:
- Number match documentation
- Defend your users from MFA fatigue attacks – Microsoft Community Hub
- Advanced Microsoft Authenticator security features are now generally available! – Microsoft Community Hub
Check out previous Microsoft Updates that Total Solutions has posted here -> Microsoft Updates Archives – Total Solutions Inc.
