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 January:
- Outlook: Reactions to Email Messages (Updated)
- Meeting Recap on Outlook on the web
- Microsoft Teams: Automatic lowering of a user’s Raised Hand after speaking
- Modern Commenting Experience Coming to Whiteboard (Updated)
- Introducing OneNote viewer in Teams mobile apps (Updated)
- Introducing OneDrive Home, the New Landing Experience
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
Outlook: Reactions to Email Messages (Updated)
[MC445423 · Published Oct 13, 2022 · Last updated Jan 25, 2023]: Microsoft has updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.
With reactions in Outlook, you can now react to an email message sent from someone in the same tenant without having to send a reply email. Show your appreciation and empathy with one click or tap.
Users will see a reactions icon (a face) in a message for any messages sent from someone inside the same tenant. They can hover over or tap it to see all of the possible reactions to select from.
Reactions will also send a digest email to a user who received any reactions.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 98101, 93321, 70615, 69097, 69095
When this will happen:
Outlook for iOS, Outlook for Android, Outlook on the web, Outlook for Mac, new Outlook for Windows: Rollout is expected to begin in mid-October and is expected to be complete by late October. – Complete
Classic Outlook for Windows (Roadmap ID 98101): Rollout is expected to begin in mid-October and is expected to be completed by early March (previously late December).
How this will affect your organization:
Reactions in Outlook allows you to react with one of six possible ways: Thumbs up, Heart, Celebrate, Laugh, Surprise, Sad. When you click on a reaction, everyone in the email thread who received the email will be able to see the reaction as long as they are part of the same tenant. The sender of the email will receive a notification of any reaction in their Notifications feed giving them a quick view of all the reactions their emails have elicited from other people.
Note: Users can only react and see reactions to messages sent from people in the same tenant. Emails received from an external sender may not show the “reaction icon” (face).
Users can also choose from different thumbs up reactions to choose the one that better represents them, and Outlook will remember their choice the next time.
ADMINS – What you need to do to prepare:
There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
Meeting Recap on Outlook on the web
***See updated service post from February 23rd, 2023 HERE.
[MC500906 · Published Jan 24, 2023]: Meeting Recap is a new feature on Outlook on the web that allows meeting participants to quickly access meeting content, such as the meeting recording, easily from the calendar event. After a meeting has ended, users can open a meeting on their calendar to find links to meeting artifacts for easy access. The feature currently supports meetings scheduled using Microsoft Teams with the following limitations:
- Meeting recordings started through auto-record in Teams will not appear in the recap
- Teams channel meetings
- Meetings scheduled on group calendars
- Ad-hoc meetings
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 98805
When this will happen:
Targeted Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out in late January and expect to complete rollout by late February.
Standard Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out in late February and expect to complete rollout by late May.
How this will affect your organization:
On the web version of Outlook, when meeting participants click on a meeting event in their calendar to view details, they may now find a link to various meeting content if they exist. E.g. if the meeting was recorded, a link to the recording will be accessible from the meeting invite from the calendar. Note that this is simply a link to the content and Outlook does not store any of the content as part of this feature. User access and permission to view the content such as the recording remain unchanged and controlled by the file owner.
ADMINS – What you need to do to prepare:
There is nothing you need to do to prepare at this time. You may want to update any relevant training documents as appropriate. For more information, please read this Outlook announcement.
Microsoft Teams: Automatic lowering of a user’s Raised Hand after speaking
[MC501981 · Published Jan 25, 2023]: Teams will soon have a feature that will alert attendees in meetings that have raised their hands and already had their questions addressed to automatically lower their hand. This will allow meeting organizers the opportunity to focus on unanswered questions.
This release will be rolling out only to Microsoft Teams Desktop users.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 90022.
When will this happen:
Public Preview will roll out in early February.
Rolling out to Production will begin in mid-March and expect to complete rollout by late March.
GCC will begin rolling out in late March and complete by early April.
GCC-H will begin rolling out in late April and complete by early May.
DoD will begin rolling out in early May and complete by mid-May.
How this will affect your organization: Users who raise their hand in a Teams meeting and speak in the meeting will see a notification informing them that their hand will automatically be lowered soon. They will be able to choose to keep their hand raised. If the user doesn’t take action on the notification, their hand will automatically lower. This should ensure smoother meeting facilitation for organizers and presenters.
ADMINS – What you need to do to prepare:
You may want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.
Modern Commenting Experience Coming to Whiteboard (Updated)
[MC477852 · Published Dec 2, 2022 · Last updated Jan 26, 2023]: Microsoft has updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.
With comments you can share your thoughts, celebrate with your teammates, or just have a conversation in Microsoft Whiteboard.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 98083
When this will happen:
Rollout will begin in late April (previously late January) and is expected to be complete by late May (previously late February).
How this will affect your organization:
Your users would have the following experiences:
- The ability to add comments on a whiteboard to aid in discussion with board participants.
- This will include a comments pane to see all comments on a given whiteboard.
Note: The commenting experience initially will not be supported for the Android and IOS apps. We eventually plan to bring this experience to mobile as well.
ADMINS – What you need to do to prepare:
There is no action required at this time. Continue checking the Microsoft Whiteboard Blog and support pages on details about upcoming features and how best to use them.
Tech Community Blog: What’s new for Microsoft Whiteboard – November 2022 – Microsoft Community Hub
Introducing OneNote viewer in Teams mobile apps (Updated)
[MC469578 · Published Nov 22, 2022 · Last updated Jan 26, 2023]: Microsoft has updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.
Microsoft is excited to announce the OneNote viewer feature within Teams mobile apps.
Through this new feature, users will be able to open and view OneNote notebooks right within their Teams mobile apps. Users interested in editing the content will be directed to the standalone OneNote mobile app. The experience will be available as part of the Teams mobile apps on Android and iOS (including iPads) starting with English language users, followed by international languages.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 103097
When this will happen:
Standard Release: Microsoft expects to begin rolling out the OneNote viewer starting early December 2022 and complete the rollout by late February (previously late January).
ADMINS – What you need to do to prepare:
No admin action is needed to support these changes.
Introducing OneDrive Home, the New Landing Experience
[MC501991 · Published Jan 25, 2023]: Microsoft has refreshed the OneDrive Commercial Web landing experience to help you get to the files you’re working on quickly and easily. The new OneDrive Home experience surfaces your most recently used files, along with relevant file activity, so you can see everything at a glance and quickly prioritize where to start working.
When will this happen?
Targeted Release: Microsoft will be rolling out beginning in late January.
Standard Release: Microsoft will be rolling out in early February and expect to complete rollout by late February.
How this will affect your organization:
Users will see OneDrive Home when they navigate to OneDrive on the web. This new view shows all of the files that you’ve used, ordered by when you last opened them. You can filter this list by file type to quickly find the file you’re looking for. You’ll also be able to stay up to date on any changes happening in the file with Activity. Users can still access files organized in folders by going to My files in the left nav.
ADMINS – What do you need to do to prepare:
You may want to consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate.
Check out previous Microsoft Updates that Total Solutions has posted here -> Microsoft Updates Archives – Total Solutions Inc.
