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 March:
- New My Groups Experience
- Microsoft Teams: Explicit Recording Consent for Teams Meetings
- Custom Templates Available for Whiteboard
- Send Praise from Viva Connections Dashboard
- Updates coming to Daily Briefing Emails (Updated)
- New home experience for Viva Connections desktop (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
New My Groups Experience
[MC522581 · Published Mar 2, 2023]: We will be replacing the existing My Groups experience at mygroups.microsoft.com with a new and improved My Groups, now available at myaccount.microsoft.com/groups in mid-May 2023.
My Groups enables end users to easily manage groups, such as finding groups to join, managing groups they own, and managing existing group memberships. Based on customer feedback, we’ve also added:
- sorting and filtering on lists of groups and group members,
- a full list of group members in large groups, and
- an actionable overview page for membership requests.
Current My Groups experience:
New My Groups experience:
When this will happen:
Beginning in mid-May and expect to complete by late May.
How this will affect your organization:
In May, users will no longer be able to access the existing My Groups and will need to adjust to the new experience. Today, end users can get the richer benefits of the new My Groups by proactively switching to myaccount.microsoft.com/groups. Navigation between the old and new experiences is available via notification banners on each site.
In May, the old experience will be retired. The previous URL (mygroups.microsoft.com) will redirect users to the new experience at myaccount.microsoft.com/groups.
In addition, in May, admins will not be able to restrict owners or users from accessing or using My Groups. Admins can still manage end users’ ability to create Microsoft 365 and Security groups using the settings described here: Set up self-service group management in Azure Active Directory
ADMINS – What you need to do to prepare:
You may consider updating your training and documentation so users can adjust to the new experience.
Please click Additional Information to learn more.
Microsoft Teams: Explicit Recording Consent for Teams Meetings
[MC523053 · Published Mar 3, 2023]: Microsoft Teams is going to support an Explicit Recording Consent meeting policy. When the policy is applied, the Teams meeting window will request explicit consent of all participants to be recorded. Before a user gives consent, the user’s audio, video, and screenshare/consent-share won’t be captured in the meeting recording.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 107781
Platform
Android, Desktop, iOS, Mac, Web
When this will happen:
Standard and GCC: We will begin rolling out in late March and expect to complete rollout by mid-April.
GCC-High: We will begin rolling out in late April and expect to complete rollout by early May.
DoD: We will begin rolling out in late May and expect to complete rollout by early June.
How this will affect your organization:
Explicit Recording Consent is OFF by default and is an IT admin policy-controlled feature. Admins can choose to enable the feature either for the entire tenant or for specific individuals based on their business needs. When the policy is applied, Teams meetings set up by these individuals will request explicit consent from all participants to be recorded.
Before a user gives consent, their audio, video, and screenshare/content-share will be disabled during the meeting. This will prevent their audio, video, and screenshare/content-share from being recorded.
Participants’ consent is logged and can be accessed as part of the Attendance Report.
ADMINS – What you need to do to prepare:
You may want to update your training materials indicating that this policy is now supported.
Admins can use PowerShell to enable or disable this feature using the following examples, and the Teams Admin Center will soon support the policy setting as well.
- Set CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -ExplicitRecordingConsent “Enabled”
- Set CsTeamsMeetingPolicy -Identity Global -ExplicitRecordingConsent “Disabled”
Please keep in mind of the following dependencies and limits when deciding to enable the feature:
- The feature relies on Attendance Report; for customers who have disabled the Attendance Report, end users will not be able to enable their mic, camera, or screensharing/content-sharing when a recording is started. If you are unable to enable Attendance Report, we recommend waiting for a future update.
- To avoid disruptions for end-users, they should be using the most recent version of Teams.
- In meetings requiring explicit consent, users joining from unsupported endpoints, such as older client versions and CarPlay, will not be able to enable their mic, camera, or screenshare/content-sharing during recording.
- Teams meeting rooms user and PSTN users can still get recording notifications as of today, but they cannot provide explicit recording consent, and their consent data will be logged as “not applicable” or “auto consent”.
Custom Templates Available for Whiteboard
[MC522573 · Published Mar 2, 2023]: Saving and sharing templates in Microsoft Whiteboard allows you to create and save customized layouts and content that can be used to create new whiteboards quickly and efficiently.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 98085
When this will happen:
Rollout will begin in early March and will be completed by late March.
How this will affect your organization:
This feature is helpful if users frequently use the same type of whiteboard or have a specific layout in mind. These templates can be shared with other individual users or distribution lists. This feature is available for customers with WHITEBOARD_PLAN2 and WHITEBOARD_PLAN3.
ADMINS – What you need to do to prepare:
There is no action required. If you wish, you can share guidance with your users on how to use this feature. We recommend updating any relevant training documentation.
Send Praise from Viva Connections Dashboard
[MC522480 · Published Mar 2, 2023]: Site owners/authors of Viva Connections can add the Praise card from Microsoft Insights on the dashboard, allowing employees to send praise to their colleagues. The Praise experience is the same experience as the one available within Microsoft Viva Insights today.
This message is associated with Microsoft Roadmap ID 117378
Platform
Android, Desktop, iOS, Web
When this will happen:
We will begin rolling out in early March and expect rollout to be complete by late March.
How this will affect your organization:
Employees will be able to send Praise to their colleagues with the Praise card. This card will be available in the Connections dashboard toolbox.
ADMINS – What you need to do to prepare:
Site owners will need to add the Praise card manually to their organization’s dashboard. Search for “Praise” in the dashboard toolbox. For additional information on the user experience, please visit this documentation.
We recommend updating any relevant training documentation.
Updates coming to Daily Briefing Emails (Updated)
[MC414800 · Published Aug 16, 2022 · Last updated Feb 28, 2023]: Updated February 28, 2023: We’ve paused sending briefing emails starting early 2023 as mentioned in MC486289 and this service will continue to stay paused until further notice. You still have access to Viva Insights features with insights and recommendations to build healthy work habits. If you rely on different features within Briefing—like preparing for meetings, reviewing outstanding tasks, or booking focus time—you can find them in your Viva Insights Outlook add-in or Viva Insights app in Teams and web. Learn more: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/viva/insights/personal/reference/briefing-pause.
The Briefing email from Microsoft Viva helps users start their day on track by surfacing information to prepare for upcoming meetings, follow up on outstanding tasks as well as protect time for independent work. A few updates are coming to the daily briefing email to provide users with ways to fine-tune their email.
Favorite & Snooze
Currently, content in briefing email is delivered in a pre-configured order. Beginning in December 2022 (previously October 2022), the briefing email will add ‘favorite’ and ‘snooze’ preferences to provide users the ability to personalize and engage with content that matter most to them. Users will also be able to change their favorite and snooze preferences directly through the settings page.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 93392
Time zone card
We’re introducing the ability for users to review, confirm, and change their working hours and time zone settings directly from this email to help ensure that it is sent at the right time for users who have different current time zone settings and meeting hour time zone settings.
When this will happen:
We’ve paused sending briefing emails starting early 2023 as mentioned in MC486289 and this service will continue to stay paused until further notice.
How this will affect your organization:
As this change begins rolling out, users in your organization will see the following updates:
Favorite & Snooze In the existing feedback bar for each card within the briefing email, there will be two additional clickable icons for marking favorite and snooze. Clicking on favorite will allow users to prioritize a particular card in briefing email; clicking on snooze will allow users to de-prioritize a particular card in briefing email.
There will be additional options within the settings page to control preferences for favorite and snooze.
Time zone card
- Beginning in August, users may see the time zone card appear in their briefing emails.
- Users will have option to review and change or confirm their current work hours and time zone
The customized email is only available to an end user; no administrator or manager can see another individual’s Briefing email. All data is stored inside the user’s mailbox. Briefing email is subject to the same GDPR compliance terms as Office 365. The customized email is only available to an end user; no administrator or manager can see another individual’s Briefing email. All data is stored inside the user’s mailbox. Briefing email is subject to the same GDPR compliance terms as Office 365.
What you need to do to prepare:
Review and assess the impact on your organization. Additionally, you might consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate. Learn more about Briefing email from Microsoft Viva, and how Microsoft protects your privacy
New home experience for Viva Connections desktop (Updated)
[MC447338 · Published Oct 17, 2022 · Last updated Feb 28, 2023] Updated February 28, 2023: The New home experiences for Viva Connections desktop has begun rolling out to production tenants, starting with Targeted Release tenants and will continue until completion, expected by the end of Q1 of this calendar year.
As a reminder, customers that already have an existing home site can choose to keep their existing desktop experience using our new PowerShell command that is already available to all customers since mid-November. More information about the PowerShell command is captured in this doc Get more details in the customization guidance.
Customers with existing home sites can choose to keep their existing desktop experience using our new PowerShell command that is already available to all customers since mid-November. More information about the PowerShell command is captured in this doc: Customize and edit the Viva Connections home experience.
A new desktop experience is being released for Viva Connections that’s easier and faster to set up and optimizes content to deliver a modern employee experience. The new Viva Connections desktop design serves as a new home experience option that centers essential job tasks, personalized content, easy access to other Viva experiences, and better aligns with the mobile experience.
It uses existing assets from your organization’s home site and Viva Connection’s Dashboard, Feed, and Resources. If your organization already has Viva Connections set up, you’ll have the option to choose to keep the existing desktop experiences that features the home site or to use the new home experience. Learn more about the new Viva Connections home experience.
Key points:
- If you’ve already set up Viva Connections, existing content will pre-populate the new home experience.
- If you haven’t set up Viva Connections yet, the default experience includes starter cards on the Dashboard but otherwise doesn’t impact the current mobile experience.
- There will be an option to select the default landing experience if your organization already has a home site. This option will become available to all customer by mid-November in the form of a PowerShell command. More information about the PowerShell command will be in the customization guidance.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 99917
When this will happen:
- The new home experience has begun rolling out and is expected to complete by late March.
How this will affect your organization: For customers who are currently using Viva Connections, the new home experience will automatically update in Microsoft Teams. Customers with existing home sites can choose to keep the existing desktop experience using a new PowerShell command that will become available to all customers by mid-November. Get more details in the customization guidance.
ADMINS – What you need to do to prepare:
With the new desktop experience, admins and editors will be able to edit content and manage permissions from Microsoft Teams. To prepare for this change, help admins and editors for Viva Connections learn more about how to customize the new home experience and how permissions work.
End users in your organization will use the same entry point in Teams as the previous desktop experience. When they view the new experience for the first time, visual prompts will walk them through the main functions of the design and how to interact with different elements. Share guidance with end users.
Check out previous Microsoft Updates that Total Solutions has posted here -> Microsoft Updates Archives – Total Solutions Inc.
