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. Recently Microsoft announced upcoming updates to Answer badges in Microsoft Viva, tailored content in your Microsoft feed, scheduled messages via Teams chats, and an update for OneDrive sync app advanced settings for Files On-Demand on Windows. 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

Get ready for Answers badges in Microsoft Viva 

[MC495890 · Published Jan 10, 2023 · Last updated Jan 18, 2023]

Answers badges are coming to Viva Engage! People can get recognized by their colleagues through the Answers feature based on the upvotes their questions or answers have earned, or if their answers were marked as the best answer. 

These are the 5 different badges that can be earned: 

• Best Answer: your answer is marked as the best answer 
• Seeker level 1: your question receives 3 upvotes 
• Seeker level 2: your question receives 10 upvotes 
• Scholar level 1: your answer receives 3 upvotes 
• Scholar level 2: your answer receives 10 upvotes 

Each user will have an achievements and awards section where they can collect all their badges and check other people’s badges in their profiles as well. 

They can access it from the right rail located in Answers or on their profile page. 

This announcement blog shows more about the Answers badges experience. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 72188 

A new Answers tab in Viva Engage will serve as a hub for employees to ask questions, find solutions, discover knowledge, and help coworkers. The Answers tab will be available within Engage to Viva Suite customers. 

Answers help organize questions and solutions by connecting to existing knowledge and experts.

Users can ask questions, see recommendations, and contribute their own answers to open questions.

Users can also follow individual topics and get notifications when new questions are available. Targeted feeds and rewards help encourage experts to share their knowledge and help coworkers.

When this will happen: 

Microsoft will begin rolling out early February 2023 and expect to complete by early March 2023. 

How this will affect your organization: 

Answers badges will be default off only for customers who are based out of Finland and organizations who use the education license. The feature is default on for everyone else. 

The following capabilities will become available for licensed Viva Suite and/or Viva Topics customers when they enable the ‘Viva Engage Knowledge’ (Answers in Microsoft Viva) service plan: 

Within the Engage admin center, as a Global admin or Engage admin (Yammer administrator AAD), you can configure Answers badges to the below 3 options. 

• Disabled: Data that was being collected for all users will be deleted and no further data will be collected for any users. The badges will be lost as well. 

• On: Users can start earning and collecting badges. The badges are visible to anyone who has a Viva Engage Knowledge service plan and are part of the organization. 
• User preference: End users will have the option to opt-out of badging for themselves. When the user opts out, data that was being collected will be deleted and no further data will be collected. The badges will be lost as well for that particular user. The user can still see others’ badges. 

What happens to users badges if the admin control is turned from enabled to disabled? 

• All the badges earned by users will be deleted and no data will be processed when the control of rewards and recognition is disabled. This means that the badges earned by users will be lost and they will not be able to get them back, unless they start earning them back again. 

ADMINS: What you need to do to prepare: 

After GA, if your organization chooses to not have badges On by default, admins can disable them by accessing the Engage admin center (in the Engage teams application) by navigating to Feature Management and accessing the Rewards and recognition subpage. 

If you don’t ever want to collect any data from badges, you will need to remove the license for the specific users before GA. 

REFERENCE: MC495890

Microsoft 365: Microsoft Feed 

[MC487016 · Published Dec 17, 2022 · Last updated Jan 17, 2023]

Microsoft has updated their rollout timeline below and appreciates your patience. 

Microsoft Feed provides users with a mix of relevant content from across Microsoft 365 that helps users discover and learn about people and interests relevant at work. The feed is personal to users and will show users content based on what’s likely to be most relevant to the current user at any given time. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 106124 

When this will happen:

• Targeted Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out late January (previously mid-January) and expect to complete by late February (previously mid-February) 
• Standard Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out late February (previously mid-February) and expect to complete by mid-March (previously early March) 

How this will affect your organization: 

Microsoft Feed will be accessible on the left navigation of Microsoft 365. Microsoft Feed will show users a mix of relevant content from across Microsoft 365 that helps them discover and learn about people and interests relevant at work. Microsoft Feed is personal to users and will show users content based on what’s likely to be most relevant to the current user at any given time.  

Please note that only content that the user has permission to access will be shown. 

ADMINS: What you need to do to prepare: 

You might want to make your users aware of this option and that the experience is personalized.  

REFERENCE: MC487016

Schedule Send for Teams Chat 

[MC427758 · Published Sep 8, 2022 · Last updated Jan 24, 2023]

Microsoft has updated the rollout timeline below to account for mobile rollout. Thank you for your patience. 

As remote teams become more common and spread across multiple time zones, Teams is introducing the schedule send feature that allows users to schedule chat messages to be delivered in the future. With this feature, we can help build better work-life balance and support flexible schedules by scheduling chat messages so that they only deliver during our peer’s work hours. Users can schedule messages to be delivered both on desktop and mobile. Additionally, all scheduled messages can be edit and delete before they are delivered.  

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 88281 

When this will happen: 

• Production: will begin rolling out in early November (previously late September) and we are expected to complete roll out by mid-February (previously late November). 
• GCC: roll out will start in mid-February and complete by mid-March. 
• GCCH: roll out will start in mid-February and complete by mid-March. 
• DoD: roll out will start in mid-February and complete by mid-March. 

How this will affect your organization: 

All users within your organization will be allowed to schedule chat messages. All scheduled messages can only be delivered no more than 7 days in the future and cannot be flagged as urgent or important. Inline images and attached files will only be accessible by others in the chat once the message has been delivered.  

Desktop: Right click on the send button to access the scheduling menu and select a date and time within 7 days from now: 

See the schedule details in the compose experience:

Select send and the message will be scheduled to be delivered at the later date and time. At the delivery date and time, the message will be sent like any other message:

Mobile: Write a message and long press on the send button to schedule the message. Select a date and time to deliver within 7 days to deliver the message:

Once you’ve selected a date to send in the future, the message will be scheduled to deliver at the later date and time. At the delivery date and time, the message will be sent like any other message:

ADMINS: What you need to do to prepare: You may want to notify your users about this new feature within chat so that they can help build better work life balance for their teams while supporting the flexible schedules that your organization supports.  

REFERENCE: MC427758

Updated Files On-Demand Settings on Windows 

[MC499439 · Published Jan 20, 2023] Microsoft has an update to the OneDrive sync app advanced settings for Files On-Demand on Windows. Previously, a toggle was shown to allow users to opt out of Files On-Demand. After this change, users who have Files On-Demand enabled will no longer see that toggle. Instead, users will see two buttons: Download files as you open them and Download all files now. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 101520 

When this will happen: 

Microsoft will begin rolling out in early February and expect to complete rollout by late February. 

How this will affect your organization: 

This change only affects users who have Files On-Demand enabled. There is no change at this time for users that have the feature disabled from OneDrive settings or by admin policy. 

Previously, a toggle was shown to allow users to opt out of Files On-Demand. After this change, users who have Files On-Demand enabled will see two buttons: 

• Download files as you open them: This is the default and recommended behavior. New files from the cloud are online-only by default, not taking up disk space. Files are downloaded to the device if a user opens them or chooses the option to “Always keep on this device” from the context menu in File Explorer. Files created on the device are available offline by default. 
• Download all files now: This setting is equivalent to choosing the option to “Always keep on this device” from the context menu in File Explorer for the entire OneDrive folder. Selecting this option causes all files from the cloud to be downloaded, taking up disk space on the device. The behavior of this setting is equivalent to the legacy option of turning off Files On-Demand mode, with some improvements like updated icons. 

ADMINS: What you need to do to prepare: 

No action is required at this time. If you have documentation that describes how to disable the Files On-Demand setting, you will need to update it. For more information, please visit  this page. 

REFERENCE: MC499439

Check out previous Microsoft Updates that Total Solutions has posted here -> Microsoft Updates Archives – Total Solutions Inc.