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 October:
- People Search Card in Viva Connections
- Microsoft Viva: Refreshed Landing Experience for Viva Connections Desktop
- Microsoft 365 Business Premium now comes with 100 print jobs per user
- Power Automate – Licensing action required for non-compliant flows
- New Microsoft Teams rollout schedule, new controls, and direct deployment (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
People Search Card in Viva Connections
[MC682303 · Published Oct 18, 2023]: Viva Connections have a new card where admins now have the option to incorporate a new people search card for their organization. This card enables colleagues to effortlessly search for and communicate with one another within the organization using Teams chat and email.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 173078
When this will happen:
Standard Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out in late October and expect to complete by early November 2023.
How this will affect your organization: This feature will not affect any existing functionality. It’s an additional card which organizations can choose to use.
What you need to do to prepare: No configuration needed. Just add the card and your organization should be able to use it in Viva Connections across all devices.
Microsoft Viva: Refreshed Landing Experience for Viva Connections Desktop
[MC682306 · Published Oct 18, 2023] The refreshed Viva Connections landing experience offers a more intuitive layout and introduces several requested new features including branding capabilities, sending announcements, a revamped Resources section, and support for different card sizes. This experience will also bring the Feed back into the viewport on your Connections page.
Here are the updates that Microsoft expects the new layout will offer:
- Announcements – Important time-sensitive information surfaced on desktop, mobile, and tablet.
- Hero section – This new section focuses on org news and brings the Connections Feed into the viewport.
- Dashboard layout –The Dashboard section is evolving to be more fluid with inline expansion.
- Resources – Introduces a new section for company-curated links different from global navigation. The new section allows for more flexibility to have a unique list with visuals like icons.
- Viva Suite links relocated – Viva Suite links have been moved to the bottom of the experience and will offer links that the user is licensed for with a corresponding description.
- Full page feed – Full page feed treatment now exists with its own pivot shown at the top of the page.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 176677
When this will happen:
Rollout will be broken down into two phases:
- Phase 1 rollout is expected to start in early November 2023 and is expected to be complete by mid-January 2024.
- Phase 2 rollout is expected to start in early February 2024 and is expected to be complete by late March 2024.
How this will affect your organization:
- The Feed will now be in the viewport of your Connections page. Your communication team can share important organization news with employees, which would surface in the Hero section on top of the page.
- Users will be notified of new announcements through the Viva Connections app through the Viva Connections app on desktop, mobile and tablet.
- With the updated resources experience, you will be able to manage a list of company links with support to add icons and images, along with URLs, that showcase your company’s brand and vision. In addition, a user managed section for employees to manage their own links is planned to be released in the second phase of this update. The updated resources experience will replace the current global navigation. However, Global navigation will still be accessible by double clicking on Connections app.
What you need to do to prepare:
You may want to notify users of these updates and update any relevant training documentation.
To transfer your existing links from your existing global navigation to the new resources section on the new Viva Connections desktop experience, you will need to follow these steps:
- Access the provisioned SharePoint list link ({SiteUrl}/Lists/CompanyList006e2221e1df45c0875383a98de5ecf1/AllItems.aspx) before the November 2023 launch and add your company links to it.
- In the list, there will be two required fields that you will need to fill out to add a link to your instance: Title and Link URL.
- Review and add the links to the list to make it available in your Connections instance when we go live. Once the two fields are completed, a link will be stored in the list. The maximum number of links that can be stored is 48 links.
- Once the new Viva Connections desktop experience is generally available, your links will populate under the new resources experience under “Company Links” in your tenant.
- The provision list link will be available a month in advance before the launch date of the updated experiences, giving admins time to add their links to the new experience when it officially launches later this year.
Microsoft 365 Business Premium now comes with 100 print jobs per user
[MC682087 · Published Oct 17, 2023]: Organizations with Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses will receive one hundred (100) print jobs per license per month starting on November 14, 2023. Today, Microsoft 365 Business Premium customers receive five (5) print jobs per license per month. These print jobs are refreshed every month and are pooled, so all licensed employees can use them. This change is similar to the April 2023 extension of print jobs per license for Microsoft 365 E3 and E5 organizations.
When this will happen:
Additional print job volume for eligible licenses will be available starting on November 14, 2023.
How this will affect your organization:
The most important impact is to those organizations that purchase the 500 or 10,000 print job add-on packs. Carefully investigate what volume you need and cancel any additional volume purchases if you do not need it. While every organization is different, most don’t print more than 100 jobs per user per month. This change may reduce or eliminate your need to purchase print job add-ons and may allow you to give more users access to Universal Print.
What you need to do to prepare:
If you have purchased print job add-ons, assess your current printing needs and determine whether you still need volume add-ons, if not, consider canceling those.
Power Automate – Licensing action required for non-compliant flows
[MC681836 · Published Oct 16, 2023] Premium flows without premium license and premium flows not in the context of Power Apps or Dynamics 365 apps are subject to enforcement. Please review this article for details on enforcement and timelines.
What action do I need to take?
Perform the following steps to identify and apply licensing to your non-compliant flows:
- Use the Power Shell to identify the flows pending suspension due to non-compliance. Update to the latest version 2.0.174. If you have less than 500 environments in your tenant, use this script to get flows that need your attention across the tenant. If there are more than 500 environments in the tenant, contact Microsoft Support so our support team can run the report for you.
- Assign a Power Automate Premium / Power Automate per user license to the owner of the flow or assign a Power Automate Process license / Per flow license to the flow. For cloud flows in context of an app, you may also link the flow to the app using a PowerShell script or Power Automate portal.
Please note that it can take up to 24 hours for a flow to be removed from the pending suspension PowerShell script after a premium license is assigned. Additionally, it may take up to 7 days for the premium license to appear in the Power Automate portal after assignment. To refresh the latest license status, simply edit and save a flow.
Why is this action needed?
Below are the two enforcements and their respective dates that will need your action:
- Makers will begin receiving notifications for any existing premium flows without a premium license in Europe and the United States on Monday, October 23rd, 2023. Makers have 14 days to obtain a license or start a trial. If no action is taken, the flows will be turned off on Monday, November 6th, 2023. Once a license is assigned to the owner/flow, the flow can be turned on.
- For power apps or dynamics apps licensed users, newly created premium flows outside the context of an app without a Power Automate license will be saved but disabled effective November 13, 2023. See Power Apps license capabilities and Dynamics license capabilities for more details. For existing flows, owners will receive notifications, allowing them 120 days to obtain a license or start a trial. If no action is taken, these flows will be suspended on March 13, 2024.
Exemptions from enforcement include:
- Power Apps licensed user flows triggered from canvas apps.
- Flows utilizing the Dataverse “For a select record” trigger in model-driven apps.
- Dynamics 365 licensed user flows using the Dataverse connector to talk to Dynamics 365 entities in the environment.
- Flows using first-party Dynamics connectors like Finance and Operations apps.
- Manual flows.
- Flows owned by individuals with grandfathered licenses (P1, P2).
Please contact Microsoft Support and reference ICM427472373 if you need assistance.
New Microsoft Teams rollout schedule, new controls, and direct deployment (Updated)
[MC617066 · Published Jun 30, 2023 · Last updated Oct 17, 2023] Updated October 16, 2023: Moving forward, please refer to the availability schedule here: The new Microsoft Teams desktop client.
The new Teams default app has started rolling out, and for more information, please visit Upgrade to the new Teams using policies.
Since March 2023, we have continued to add features such as third-party, line-of-business (LOB) applications, breakout rooms, and new scenarios such as multi-tenant organization (MTO) to the new Teams experience. Read MC533687 for details for our March announcement. Check The new Microsoft Teams (Preview) for details on upcoming features and support for Government Clouds and platforms such as Mac, VDI, and Web.
This announcement includes three upcoming changes for rolling out the new Microsoft Teams app:
Note: Microsoft will continue to honor the admin setting for UseNewTeamsClient under Teams update policies, where admins have already deployed the policy. This is to ensure administrators are fully empowered to manage the rollout of new Teams in a manner that’s right for them.
- Microsoft will begin displaying Try the new Teams toggle within the classic Microsoft Teams client where the admin policy setting of UseNewTeamsClient is set to Microsoft default value (Microsoft controlled in the Teams Admin Center (TAC) or Microsoft choice in PowerShell) based on our schedule details below.
- Administrators will be able to directly deploy the new Teams client to PCs in their organization.
- Microsoft will begin making new Teams as the default app for classic Teams users where the admin policy is set to Microsoft default (Microsoft controlled in TAC or Microsoft choice in PowerShell) based on our schedule details below. Administrators will be able to manage setting new Teams as the default app for their users.
When this will happen:
Starting mid-to late July 2023:
Microsoft will begin displaying the Try the new Teams toggle within the classic Microsoft Teams client starting in late July 2023. The planned rollout will be:
- Business plans (for example, Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, and Teams Essentials (AAD), etc.): late July-early August 2023
- Enterprise plans (for example, E3, E5, F3, etc.): The new Microsoft Teams desktop client
- Note: Admins who have already deployed the policy to display the toggle or hide the toggle for their organizations will not see any change.
- Administrators can deploy the new Teams client directly to PCs in their organization starting mid-July 2023.
- Administrators can deploy a new setting value to make new Teams the default app for their users starting late July 2023
Starting September 2023:
Microsoft will start making the new Teams the default app starting in late September 2023. The planned rollout will be:
- Business plans (for example, Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium, and Teams Essentials (AAD), etc.): late September 2023
- Enterprise plans (for example, E3, E5, F3, etc.): The new Microsoft Teams desktop client
How this will affect your organization:
- Users will start seeing the Try the new Teams toggle in their classic Teams app. Organizations where admins have already deployed the policy to display the toggle or hide the toggle won’t see any changes.
- For bulk deployment, administrators will be able to safely deploy new Teams for their organization without needing to give admin privileges to the users. To learn more about this method, read our documentation here: Bulk deploy the new Microsoft Teams client.
- Administrators can also manage setting new Teams as the default app. To do this, administrators can manage “Use new Teams client” policy and configure “New Teams as default” for their users. To learn more, see our policy page here: Policy settings for deployment.
What you can do to prepare: Review the resources and timeline and plan your organizations rollout plan for the new Microsoft Teams app.
Check out previous Microsoft Updates that Total Solutions has posted here -> Microsoft Updates Archives – Total Solutions Inc.
