Microsoft365-CSP-Newsletter-December2023

We have pleasure sharing a round-up of updates we believe you’ll find useful from your Microsoft investment and we encourage you to contact your account manager if you require any additional information regarding any of the topics shared here.

With so many updates available regarding Copilot, we encourage you to download our webinar series and register for our upcoming events on the 18th and 25th June which will provide you details for the technical and people readiness for Copilot for Microsoft 365. Register here.

1. Microsoft Teams: webinars plus new meeting registration options

How this will affect your organization:
When scheduling a meeting, your users will see the Webinar option on the Calendar drop down menu in Teams (desktop/web).

Microsoft Teams: webinars plus new meeting registration options

Additionally, users will be able to add registrations for meetings and webinars for people in your organization and outside of your organization.

The registration feature will be on by default for everyone. In order to view who attended the webinars, we recommended setting the “AllowEngagementReport” policy to true.

Microsoft Teams: webinars plus new meeting registration options

Associated features that apply to webinars and meetings, include:

  • Registration page creation with email confirmation for registrants.
  • Reporting for registration and attendance.

These capabilities will be available to users with the following licenses: Office 365 or Microsoft 365 E3/E5/A3/A5/Business Standard/Business Premium. For the rest of 2021, we are offering temporary availability to Teams users to try the features with their existing commercial subscription.

What you need to do to prepare

By default, all users within your tenant will be able to schedule webinars unless current policy configuration prohibits it.

Should you wish to restrict who can host a webinar that requires registration for everyone, change the WhoCanRegister policy accessed in the Teams admin center.

  • You can disable this policy tenant-wide
  • You can enable this policy for specific users

You can manage the registration feature in the Teams admin center or with PowerShell commands. There are three options for admin management.

  • Turn off registration for the entire tenant
  • Turn off registration for external attendees, the For everyone option
  • Give select users the ability to create a registration page that supports external attendees. All other users would be able create a registration page for people inside the tenant.

These policies are managed via PowerShell.

  • Edit an existing Teams meeting policy by using the Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet.
  • Create a new Teams meeting policy by using the New-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet and assign it to users

When this will happen: April/May

2. Organizers can lock meetings

How this will affect your organization

When the change has rolled out meeting organizers will have the option to Lock the meeting:

Organizers can lock meetings

When this will happen

Mid-May and expect to complete by the end of May

3. Teams: Join a meeting with digital meeting ID

How this will affect your organization

All meetings will have a Meeting ID that is automatically assigned to a Microsoft Teams user and added to the meeting invite under the meeting link. Meeting attendees can join the meeting by entering the Meeting ID. For all meeting attendees, the pre-join, lobby and security will remain the same.

Teams: Join a meeting with digital meeting ID

When will this happen:

Early May and expect to complete rollout by late May 2021.

4. Free for one year: users can join Team meetings via call-in number

How this will affect your organization

With Audio Conferencing, attendees can join Teams meetings from wherever they are, using a global dial-in number. This is useful when people need to join meetings from land line telephones or when they do not have internet access. The global dial-in number allows attendees to join via voice only.

To take advantage of this offer, you acquire free licenses and then assign them users in your organization.

To activate free dial-in Audio Conferencing, from within Admin center go to Purchase services > Add-ons and then select the free Microsoft 365 Audio Conferencing Adoption Promo.

When will this happen:
Available Now. It expires on June 30, 2021 (previously March 31, 2021).

5. Customized backgrounds in Microsoft Teams meeting video coming to mobile devices

How this will affect your organization

Users will be able to add backgrounds to their meetings and calls on mobile devices; the feature respects the same policies as desktop backgrounds.

When this will happen

  • iOS: rollout began early April and should be complete mid-April
  • Android: rollout begins early May and should be complete mid-May

What you need to do to prepare

Mobile devices respect the policies that are in place for Teams desktop apps via the VideoFiltersMode parameter.

  • Edit an existing Teams meeting policy using the Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet.
  • Create a new Teams meeting policy using the New-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy cmdlet and then assign the policy to users.

6. Set out of office within Microsoft Teams

How this will affect your organization

With this update, end users can create an out of office message from within Microsoft Teams desktop or Microsoft Teams on the web. This out of office message will sync with the user’s Outlook calendar, presence, and contact card information.

There are two ways to access the Out of Office setting:

1. Access the Out of Office setting through the “Set status message” panel accessible from the user profile image.

Set out of office within Microsoft Teams

2. Access the Out of Office setting through the Teams application settings accessible from the user profile image.

Out of Office

When this will happen
Rollout will begin early May and is expected to be complete by the end of May.

7. Reduce background noise in Microsoft Teams Meetings (now available for MAC users)

How this will affect your organization

The AI-based, real-time noise suppression that was added to Windows desktop client for Microsoft Teams in Nov 2020 will soon also be available on MAC. This feature will automatically remove background noise from your meetings. Users can set the noise suppression level before a meeting. Once changed, the setting applies to the next call.

  • The four settings are Auto (default), Low, High, and Off.
  • They are accessible from the profile image > Settings prior to a meeting and from More options … > Device settings during a meeting.

Reduce background noise in Microsoft Teams Meetings (now available for MAC users)

When this will happen
late April and expect to complete rollout late August.

8. Outlook mobile clients will soon provide access to delegate mailboxes

How this affects your organization

Your end users will soon be able to add and remove delegates from within Outlook for iOS and Outlook for Android. Delegates will be able to access those mailboxes on their mobile app as well.

Outlook mobile clients will soon provide access to delegate mailboxes

When will this happen
Rollout begins in late April and should be complete in early May.

Administrator Updates

1. Reports Retiring

How this affects your organization

The following reports are being retired in the Security and Compliance center:

  • Spam Detection Report
  • Safe Attachment Message Disposition
  • Safe Attachment File types
  • Malware detected in email

Transition to the Threat protection status report for the new versions of these reports

When will this happen
June 14, 2021

2. The new Exchange admin center general availability

How this affects your organization

The new Exchange Admin Center (EAC) is a modern and a performant admin portal. This new portal has most of the functionality available in the classic EAC portal along with a lot of new features like tenant-to-tenant migration, automated G-Suite migration, and more.

When will this happen
GA

The new Exchange admin center general availability

3. Location Based Access Control

How this will affect your organization

Admins currently restrict access to sensitive data based on IP address. However, IP address is less accurate and less reliable than GPS data. Thus, admins need the ability to restrict access based off of GPS data.

Now, admins will have the ability to create Conditional Access policies to allow/deny access using a new type of Named Location based off GPS data. When the policy is enabled, end users will need to share their GPS location from the mobile device on which Microsoft Authenticator is installed. The user’s mobile device is a good indication of the user’s actual location at the time.

When this will happen:
Available via preview starting in early May and completing by mid-May.

4. SharePoint site templates

How this will affect your organization

Users will be able to benefit from the ability to browse, preview, and apply site templates to a new or existing SharePoint site. Users can select a site template that meets organizational business objectives and best fits the site goal while ensuring a higher level of consistency throughout their organization. They can then review pre-populated content and customize the site to address their needs. This feature is default on with no admin control.

To apply a template to an existing site: Users can choose to browse site templates and can apply a template to an existing site at any time by accessing the template gallery from Site Settings and then Apply a site template.

To apply a template to a new site: If a site owner is visiting their new site for the first time, they may see a message asking if they want to use a template that will take them to the template gallery.

How can we help?

 
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