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 July:
- Windows Mail and Calendar are becoming Outlook
- Changes to the registration campaign feature in Microsoft Entra (previously Azure Active Directory)
- Bing Chat Enterprise rolling out in Preview starting today
- Basic Authentication retirement in Microsoft 365 Apps
- GA Rollout for Microsoft Edge management service in the Microsoft 365 admin center
- SharePoint: New site creation experience
- Microsoft Teams: 1000 Channels per Team
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
Windows Mail and Calendar are becoming Outlook
[MC650424 · Published Jul 20, 2023]: The Mail and Calendar apps for Windows are being replaced with the new Outlook for Windows. At the end of 2024 we will be ending support for the Mail and Calendar apps for Windows. The new Outlook for Windows helps people be more productive and in control of their inbox. Microsoft is excited about this change that will provide users with great new productivity features such as Microsoft Loop, message reminders, as well as file and people suggestions while composing an email. The new Outlook also offers more ways to stay in control with drag and drop emails as tasks, work hours and location, pinning and snoozing messages and many others.
How this will affect your organization:
For organization administrators the new Outlook for Windows will offer greater levels of control compared to Mail and Calendar such as the ability to (1) respect conditional access policies (2) enable/disable integration of features like Dropbox, Linkedin, Google Drive, ect. (3) enable/disable certain folders in Outlook and many more capabilities which can be found on the OWA Mailbox Policy Parameter page. Users within your tenant, who have accounts signed into the Mail and Calendar app, should already see a toggle in the application. Clicking that toggle will bring users to the new Outlook for Windows.
Over the coming weeks, Mail & Calendar app users will begin to see additional notices in those apps stating that support will end in 2024 and they will need to migrate to the new Outlook for Windows.
When this will happen:
Important: In late August of 2023, we will also begin a process of auto-migrating Mail & Calendar app users to the new Outlook for Windows with an option to go back if they choose. Users can go back to the current Mail and Calendar apps by clicking the toggle in the new Outlook for Windows.
What you need to do to prepare:
No action is required from tenant admins; however, you should reiterate the message to your users that Mail and Calendar will no longer be supported after the end of 2024.
We also want to reiterate that these changes will not affect your organization’s use of classic Outlook for Windows. Our guidance for Outlook for Windows users remains unchanged from our previous Message Center Post (MC381366)
If you would like to prevent users from adding their corporate email accounts to the new Outlook, you can follow the instructions in this document to disable the application for a single user, group of users, or the whole tenant:
Enable or disable access to the new Outlook for Windows | Microsoft Learn
Changes to the registration campaign feature in Microsoft Entra (previously Azure Active Directory)
[MC650420 · Published Jul 20, 2023]: Publicly switched telephone networks (PSTN) such as SMS and voice authentication are the weakest forms of MFA. To help your users move away from these less secure MFA methods we are introducing changes to the Microsoft managed state of the registration campaign (aka Nudge) feature in Microsoft Entra (previously Azure Active Directory).
When this will happen:
Starting September 2023
How this affects your organization:
Users in your organization who are relying on PSTN (SMS and/or voice) for MFA will be prompted to use the Microsoft Authenticator app. Users can skip this prompt for a maximum of 3 times, after which registration of the app will be required by default. Note: admins can decide it they want to opt out of the “limited” 3 snooze configuration or give their end users the ability to snooze indefinitely.
What you can do to prepare:
Microsoft urges you to motivate your users to immediately stop using SMS and voice for MFA. You can take advantage of several new admin levers to achieve this such as system-preferred MFA and Microsoft Authenticator Lite, in addition to registration campaign. However, if some of your users require more time you can exempt them for now. Sign in as Global Administrator or Authentication Policy Administrator and go to Microsoft Entra > Identity > Protection > Authentication methods > Registration campaign and exclude these user groups.
Stay alert, stay secure! Microsoft Identity & Network access (IDNA) product group
Bing Chat Enterprise rolling out in Preview starting today
[MC649341 · Published Jul 18, 2023]: Starting today, Bing Chat Enterprise will be rolling out to eligible Microsoft 365 tenants in Preview—it will be turned off by default.
To turn on Bing Chat Enterprise, you will need to use the link: https://aka.ms/TurnOnBCE. Bing Chat Enterprise gives your organization AI-powered chat for work with commercial data protection. With Bing Chat Enterprise, user and business data are protected and will not leak outside the organization. What goes in—and comes out—remains protected. Your organization’s chat data is not saved, Microsoft has no eyes-on access to it, and it is not used to train the models.
Learn more about Bing Chat Enterprise: https://aka.ms/BingChatEnterprise.
This change is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 151035
When this will happen:
Bing Chat Enterprise is off by default when it begins rolling out in Preview today.
It will be turned on by default in mid-August, however you can control whether Bing Chat Enterprise is turned on for your organization by following the instructions provided below.
How this will affect your organization:
If you turn on Bing Chat Enterprise, users will be able to access it, where supported:
- Bing.com/chat
- Microsoft Edge sidebar (requires Microsoft Edge version 114.0.1823.86 or higher in Stable or Dev channels)
Users must be signed in with their work account (Microsoft Entra ID, currently known as Azure Active Directory) to access Bing Chat Enterprise.
What you need to do to prepare:
To turn on Bing Chat Enterprise for your tenant:
- Use the link: https://aka.ms/TurnOnBCE
To turn off Bing Chat Enterprise for your tenant or opt-out of Bing Chat Enterprise prior to it turning on by default in mid-August:
- Use the link: https://aka.ms/TurnOffBCE
- If turned off, Bing Chat Enterprise will not be turned on by default in mid-August.
Note:
- As a temporary measure, organizations will need to have the Microsoft Search in Bing control enabled in the Microsoft 365 admin center to access to Bing Chat Enterprise: Set up Microsoft Search
- Total Solutions is working to bring the Bing Chat Enterprise controls into the Microsoft 365 admin center. We will provide a follow-up notification when they are available.
For further details, please see our technical documentation: Bing Chat Enterprise documentation. We recommend that once you turn on Bing Chat Enterprise for your organization, you inform your users of the new feature and have them sign into Bing.com/chat or the Microsoft Edge browser with their work account to access it.
Basic Authentication Retirement in Microsoft 365 Apps
[MC649046 · Published Jul 17, 2023] Microsoft 365 Apps are disabling server sign-in prompts using Basic authentication in Office Apps. We are making this change because basic authentication is a legacy authentication method that sends a username and password with each request. As a result, an attacker can access these credentials and use them to access resources. Continued use of Basic Authentication is a big security concern, so Microsoft has decided to deprecate it from all tenants.
Microsoft will retire this feature in Office Apps version 2307+. Instead, we recommend moving to a more secure authentication method, preferably Modern Authentication, and enabling multi-factor authentication based on OAuth2.0 token-based auth.
This retirement will not affect Exchange Online and Exchange on-premises. Customers using basic authentication to connect to Exchange on-premises/Exchange Online can continue to use basic authentication without any changes to Exchange.
There is a separate effort to retire Outlook connecting to Exchange Online using Basic Authentication. Please see Exchange Online – September 2022 Update.
Windows files share access is not affected. The underlying authentication layer for file share is NTLM, and there is not change to NTLM. More information is here – Microsoft SMB Protocol Authentication – Win32 apps | Microsoft Learn.
Access to files stored on SharePoint on-premises server that are using basic authentication will be blocked. However, files stored on SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business are not affected. Customers who currently store files on web servers that use Basic authentication can move those files to SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, or SharePoint Server on-premises as a solution.
Note: This change is only impactful for organizations with on premises servers. If you do not have on premises servers, you can safely disregard this message.
When this will happen:
Microsoft will begin rolling this change to Current Channel in August 2023.
For additional channel timing please review: Basic authentication sign-in prompts are blocked by default in Microsoft 365 Apps
How this will affect your organization:
Once Basic authentication is disabled in your tenant, users with the Office Version 2307 or higher on their devices will not be able to access resources from servers using Basic authentication. After the upgrade, end-users will get a Blocking message. If a user tries to open a file stored on a server still using Basic Authentication, Office Client App will block the sign-in prompt and present this pop-up message to the user.
Note: Exchange Online team is working on retiring Basic Authentication separately, Outlook will continue to support Basic Authentication with Exchange Online till that work is complete. Access to all other resources using Basic Authentication will be blocked in Outlook Version 2209 and higher. Deprecation of Basic authentication in Exchange Online This is a sample Basic Authentication login window:
GA Rollout for Microsoft Edge management service in the Microsoft 365 admin center
[MC650423 · Published Jul 20, 2023] The Microsoft Edge management service, a new, dedicated and simplified management experience for Microsoft Edge in the Microsoft 365 admin center, is rolling out now for general availability. This tool allows IT admins to manage group policies and extensions with a simplified, intuitive UI. Admins can set policies through toggles and drop-down menus instead of the complexity of configuring JSON values, which helps reduce errors. This solution is another option for managing Edge that lives alongside Intune and other major endpoint solutions.
Global admins and Edge admins in the Microsoft 365 admin center can create and manage policies and extensions and assign these configurations to Azure AD groups using the intuitive UI. In the extensions tab, admins can access Edge Add-ons to search for, see ratings, add, and delete extensions, as well as view user extension requests, all in one easy-to-navigate location.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 124856
When this will happen:
Edge management service is rolling out now in the Microsoft 365 admin center. If using Edge version 115.1934 and earlier, please use these steps to enable. If using Edge version 115.1935 and later, Edge management service is enabled by default.
How this will affect your organization:
Edge management service is an additional option for managing Edge, along with Intune and other major endpoint solutions. It’s designed to make management of Microsoft Edge simpler and faster.
What you need to do to prepare:
To manage extensions and policies in the Edge management service, you will need Global admin or Edge admin access. Read this article to learn how to assign admin roles in the Microsoft 365 admin center.
To access the experience, go to the Microsoft 365 admin center > Settings > Microsoft Edge.
Additional information:
- Read our announcement of the Edge management service for more information.
- Read this documentation to learn how to get started and use Edge management service.
- Should you experience any technical issues, please open a support ticket.
SharePoint: New site creation experience
[MC650415 · Published Jul 20, 2023] With this update, you will choose a site template based on your scenario to get started creating your site. When choosing a template you can see its capabilities, and even see a preview. This change will help site owners through the process by simplifying and providing additional guidance while creating the site.
As a part of this update, several site templates have been renamed to clarify their purpose and simplify the selection of a template as a part of the site creation process.
- Standard team – the new name for the default team site template (formerly “team collaboration”).
- Standard communication – the new name for the default communication site template (formerly “Topic”).
- Training course – the new name for the template used to present training courses (formerly “Training and courses”).
- Training design team – the new name for the template used by teams while developing training (formerly “Training and development team”).
Microsoft is also updating the content in several of our site templates with this update. This includes content updates to the following templates: Organization home, Event, Human resources, Volunteer center, and Crisis management.
To make template selection easier, we have updated the site template gallery to include a full visual preview, a list of site capabilities, and a list of pages and other features that come with each template. Site Creation: Site template details
Site Creation: Site template preview
Site Creation: Set site properties
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 141819
When this will happen:
Targeted Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out will begin rolling out in Late July
Standard Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out in mid-August to complete by early September.
How this will affect your organization: With this update, all users who create sites will experience the new site creation process. Both the end-user and administrator experiences now include the selection of a site template as a part of the site creation process.
Site administrator site creation:
As a part of this update, several site templates have been renamed to clarify their purpose and simplify the selection of a template as a part of the site creation process.
- Standard team – the new name for the default team site template (formerly “team collaboration”).
- Standard communication – the new name for the default communication site template (formerly “Topic”).
- Training course – the new name for the template used to present training courses (formerly “Training and courses”).
- Training design team – the new name for the template used by teams while developing training (formerly “Training and development team”).
We are also updating the content in several of our site templates with this update. This includes content updates to the following templates: Organization home, Event, Human resources, Volunteer center, and Crisis management.
There are no further customizations to the site creation experience and if you have disabled self-service site creation this will not impact your users. Only users and administrators who create sites will interact with this updated site creation experience.
What you need to do to prepare: There are no actions needed to prepare for this update. If you use self-service site creation in your organization, you should consider educating or informing your organization of these upcoming updates.
Microsoft Teams: 1000 Channels per Team
[MC649926 · Published Jul 19, 2023] Microsoft Teams channel limits are soon increasing to 1000 channels per team. Users will be able to create any combination of standard and shared channels, plus up to 30 private channels, for a total of 1000 per team, allowing for even more collaboration and organization within your team.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 127496
When this will happen:
Preview: Microsoft will begin rolling out in late July and expect to complete rollout by early August.
Standard and GCC: Microsoft will begin rolling out in mid-August and expect to complete rollout by late August.
GCCH and DoD: Microsoft will begin rolling out in mid-September and expect to complete rollout by late September.
How this will affect your organization:
The current 200 standard and 200 shared channel limits are changing to a combined increased channel limit, allowing teams to have greater flexibility when creating a new channel. Teams will be able to create any combination of standard and shared channels up to a total of 1000—including up to 30 private channels per team.
What you need to do to prepare: No preparation is needed. Organizations will be enabled for the increased channel limits as part of this rollout.
Check out previous Microsoft Updates that Total Solutions has posted here -> Microsoft Updates Archives – Total Solutions Inc.
