Microsoft July 2024 Update Digest
A. Microsoft Copilot
1. New Scheduled prompts feature
Coming soon for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365: A new Scheduled prompts feature that allows users to automate Copilot prompts to run at set times and frequencies in Copilot in Microsoft Teams, Office.com/chat, and Microsoft Outlook for the web and Desktop. A Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 license and a Standard Microsoft Power Automate license are required to use this feature.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 401124.
When this will happen:
General Availability (Worldwide): Microsoft will begin rolling out early October 2024 and expect to complete by late October 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
Before this rollout: Users are unable to schedule Copilot for Microsoft 365 prompts to run at a specific time and frequency.
After the rollout: Users can find the Scheduled prompts feature by hovering over a prompt they have submitted to Copilot. When a user selects the?Save and activate?button to confirm the scheduled prompt, a user’s prompt information will be sent to the Power Automate and Power Platform system, and the Power Automate?terms of service?and?privacy policy?apply:
What you need to do to prepare:
Managing the Scheduled prompts feature as an admin: To continue having the Scheduled prompts feature available in your organization, no action is required. The feature is automatically included as part of the?Optional Connected Experiences admin setting,?which is on by default.
Admins can access the Optional connected experiences setting at?config.office.com?or in the Copilot > Settings in the Microsoft 365 admin center, starting in mid-September 2024:
If you prefer not to have this feature available to your organization,?you can turn off the feature at?config.office.com?or go to Copilot > Settings in the Microsoft 365 admin center. For more information:?Admin controls for optional connected experiences. If you turn off the?Optional connected experiences?setting, this action will prevent anyone in your organization from seeing the Scheduled prompts feature in Copilot.
To prevent exposing organizational data, you should also create a data policy in the?Power Platform admin center.?Creating a data policy in the center allows administrators to control access to these connectors in various ways to help reduce risk in your organization. Learn more here:?Data policies – Power Platform | Microsoft Learn
If you disable this feature after someone in your organization has already used the feature:
Before rollout, Microsoft will update this post with revised documentation.
2. Apply suggestions for Coaching by Copilot in Microsoft Outlook
Summary:
Coaching by Copilot in Microsoft Outlook introduces an 'Apply All' button to implement coaching feedback and rewrite email drafts. Rolling out from late July to early September 2024, it's available in new Outlook versions and requires an active Copilot license. No admin action needed for the update.
?
Details:
Coaching by Copilot for Microsoft Outlook email client now offers users the option to apply the coaching feedback and rewrite their email draft simply by using an Apply All button.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 392326.
?
When this will happen:
Public Preview: Microsoft will begin rolling out late July 2024 and expect to complete by early August 2024.
General Availability: Microsoft will begin rolling out early August 2024 and expect to complete by early September 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
Apply all?suggestions will generate a new email draft that the user can accept or decline to replace their current draft. To access?Apply all?suggestions, begin by running Coaching by Copilot on an email draft and look for the?Apply All?button.
This feature will only be available in new Outlook, Outlook for Web, Outlook for Mac, Outlook for iOS, and Outlook for Android. Classic Outlook support will not be included in this rollout.?
This feature is only available for users/tenants with an active Copilot license.?
For more information, see?Email coaching with Copilot in Outlook – Microsoft Support.
Apply Suggestions user experience
New Outlook: Coach feedback with?Apply All?button
New Outlook: Coach rewrite
3. Enable a Copilot adoption community in Viva Engage
Network admins and corporate communicators can enable a Viva Engage community specifically built to support adoption of Microsoft 365 Copilot. The Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption community makes it easier for your users to ask questions, seek support from peers and IT admins, and learn best practices for Copilot. The Copilot Adoption community is now generally available for Viva and Copilot customers. Learn more about how it works.
4. Expanded availability of the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard
The Microsoft Copilot Dashboard is now available as part of Copilot for Microsoft 365 licenses and no longer requires a Viva Insights premium license. Microsoft is now rolling out the Microsoft Copilot Dashboard to Copilot for Microsoft 365 customers who have over 100 assigned Copilot licenses or 10 assigned premium Viva Insights licenses.?
With this update, the Copilot Dashboard now provides data for all Copilot license holders, providing greater visibility into adoption and impact at your organization. Microsoft has also streamlined admin controls for easier management and customization.?
5. Turn prompt inspiration into action with Copilot Lab
Copilot Lab empowers users to confidently start their AI journey and maximize the potential of Copilot in their daily tasks with curated prompts. Soon, with a simple click, users will be able to take any prompt from the Copilot Lab website and run the prompt in Copilot with Graph-grounding chat, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel by selecting the “Try in” button within each prompt card. This feature will begin rolling out in August.?
?
Users can visit Copilot Lab today to explore our latest prompt collection or check out Copilot Lab in their favorite Microsoft 365 apps or on mobile to get inspired right in the flow of work.?
6. Enhance data understanding with Copilot in Excel
Copilot in Excel helps users explore and understand data. Now, users can make sense of their data more easily with new features that enable previews of requested changes and support for complex conditional formatting.
?
Now when users ask Copilot to make changes to table data, Copilot provides a description of the planned changes along with a button to apply the change, providing the user with more information to decide whether to proceed with the update. Users can refine changes and apply them when they’re ready. This feature is rolling out in July.
Conditional formatting can be particularly helpful for users when shaping a worksheet. Now, when users set a conditional format rule, Copilot can include a preview of the conditional formatting style that will be applied and a formula explanation when available. This feature is rolling out in July.?
?
Microsoft has also added more support for complex conditional formats, so users can ask Copilot to highlight rows or columns based on a combination of inputs. For example, to do this a user can prompt Copilot: "Highlight rows where 'priority' is 'critical' and 'status' is not 'done'.” This feature is?rolling out in July.?
Soon, users can ask Copilot to add a single formula to summarize column data into one cell. Currently, full column calculations produce a unique result in each row, but this new feature gives users the option to calculate all data in a column together to return one result. This feature is?rolling out in July.?
7. Craft and organize emails faster with Copilot
Draft by Copilot is a feature to improve and simplify the process of drafting emails. Users can now ask Copilot to draft an email using the right-hand side chat by selecting the Copilot icon on the top right of the app. Copilot will recognize which email a user is reading, so they can prompt Copilot to help draft a response by asking something like, “Reply to this email confirming...” and Copilot will continue developing a draft in the compose window. Using the same chat experience, users can also ask Copilot to help organize email by using a prompt such as “Move all email from?[email protected]?into my Sales folder.” Both features will roll out in July.?
8. Improve centralized communications with Copilot in Viva Amplify Editor
Microsoft is bringing the superpowers of Copilot directly into the Viva Amplify editing experience to revolutionize the way users create and enhance content by providing writing assistance for all communications. Users can simply click the Copilot icon for help with content, style, rewrites, and tone. Copilot in Viva Amplify will be?available in preview in?August.??
B. Microsoft Teams
1. Ability to rename General channel
Based on customer feedback, Microsoft is introducing the ability to provide a meaningful name to the General channel in a new or existing team. The General channel can be renamed by the team owners to show up in the teams' and channels' list of all members in alphabetical order.?
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID?395931
When this will happen:
Targeted Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out early August 2024 and expect to complete by mid-August 2024.
?
General Availability
?
How this will affect your organization:
You can encourage your users to provide a meaningful name to General channels in their teams.?
What you need to do to prepare:
You may consider updating your internal documentation to inform your users that this feature is now available.?
2. Video tile re-sizing based on people count for Teams Rooms on Windows
In Gallery view for Microsoft Teams meetings, a room video is optimized and larger in size to increase visibility of participants that are in a Teams Room. With this update, the room video tile will dynamically re-size based on people count to ensure adequate and equitable space is allocated in Gallery view. If there is only one participant in the room, the video tile will be the same size as another remote participant tile. If there is more than one participant in the room, the room video tile will remain optimized, at 4x the size of a remote participant. To determine the people count in rooms, Cloud IntelliFrame must be enabled or there must be a room camera that is capable of sending people count via Accessory Signaling Protocol (ASP).
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 400706.
?
When this will happen:
General Availability (Worldwide): Microsoft will begin rolling out early September 2024 (previously mid-August) and expect to complete by mid-September 2024 (previously late August).
?
How this will affect your organization:
The updated Gallery view will provide remote participants a better experience with the room video participants. The below image exemplifies two room participants in a Teams meeting. Conf Room Ruby remains larger in size, as there are more than two participants in the room, while Conf Room Emerald has one participant in the room and is the same size as other remote participants.
This update is enabled by default, and admins have the ability to turn this off via the EnableRoomPeopleCount XML setting for Microsoft Teams Room. Turning this off will not send people count information for room video tile re-sizing.
?
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically with no admin action required. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.
3. Videos in town halls will display without cropping
Before this rollout, in Microsoft Teams town halls, the videos that organizers and presenters share may appear cropped and display in a "fill to frame" view (that may cut important parts of the video) for attendees. To ensure a proper viewing experience for attendees, this rollout will ensure all videos shared in town halls will retain a 16:9 aspect ratio and a "fit to frame" view for attendees, with no cropping. Also, when content and video is shared, videos will appear in the center of the video section to the attendees (instead of in the upper right of the video section).
?
When this will happen:
Targeted Release: Microsoft ?will begin rolling out mid-August 2024 and expect to complete by mid-August 2024.
General Availability (Worldwide and GCC): Microsoft will begin rolling late August 2024 and expect to complete by late August 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
Before the rollout: Videos that the presenter and organizer share may be cropped and not centered in the video space:
After the rollout: Attendees will see videos appear in a "fit to frame" view, without cropping, and centered in the video space:
This feature is on by default and available to all Microsoft Teams users.
?
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.
4. Download town hall and webinar Q&As to CSV
Coming soon to Microsoft Teams: Town hall and webinar organizers will be able to download a CSV file of questions and answers posted in Teams Q&A by town hall or webinar attendees. This message applies to Teams for Desktop on PC and Mac.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID?398446.
When will this happen
General Availability (Worldwide): Microsoft will begin rolling out in mid-August 2024 and expect to complete by early September 2024.
How this will affect your organization:
Before this rollout: Town hall and webinar organizers were not able to download Q&A to CSV.
After the rollout:
After concluding a town hall or webinar, organizers can go to the?Reports?section of their Teams town hall or webinar invitation and download the Q&A report, which contains:
This feature is on by default and accessible to all Teams users on Desktop and web on PC and Mac.
After a town hall or webinar, users will be able to go to Teams >?Calendar > Details > Manage event:
From the?Manage event?page, users can select?Reports > Download > Q&A report:
The Q&A report downloads to CSV and contains content from the town hall or webinar:
What you need to do to prepare:
Let Teams town hall and webinar organizers know that in August 2024 they can download content from their Q&A to CSV, just like they can for Teams Live Events.
This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to update any relevant documentation as appropriate.
Learn more
5. External USB Webcams are now supported in Teams meetings
With the release of Apple iPadOS 17, Microsoft Teams will now support external webcams and cameras in meetings and calls on Apple iPads.? Simply connect your external webcam and camera to your Apple iPad.
?
When this will happen:
General Availability (Worldwide, DoD): Microsoft will begin rolling out late June 2024 and expect to complete by early July 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
To conduct their Teams meeting experience on Apple iPads using external webcams and cameras, users must connect their webcam to their Apple iPad before joining their meeting. If users want to switch to their Apple iPad camera, they must disconnect from their external webcam.
?
This update is available by default.
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically with no admin action required. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.
6. Hide presenters, translators, moderators or staff from webinar event page
Before this rollout, all presenters added to a Microsoft Teams webinar were displayed on the event page. Coming soon to Teams: webinar organizers will be able to add individuals to the webinar and give them presenter privileges—to join the green room, manage what attendees see, turn their camera on or off, and moderate the event—without including the individuals on the event page as presenters. This feature will allow webinar organizers to support roles like live translators, event moderators, and staff who are not presenting. This message applies to Teams on Windows and the web.
When this will happen:
General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): Microsoft will begin rolling out early August 2024 and expect to complete by early September 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
To access this new feature, go to the Teams calendar and select the arrow next to New meeting > Webinar > Presenter bios > Select Hide from site in the three-dot menu:
This feature is on by default and is accessible to all Teams users on Windows and web.
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.
Before rollout, Microsoft will update this post with revised documentation.
7. Bidirectional Support for Teams Live Interpretation
With bidirectional support in Teams Live Interpretation, interpreters can now switch the translation direction between two languages by clicking on the button of the language they want to interpret into at the bottom of the screen. The highlighted language button will be the language the interpreter is translating into and attendees hear.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID?403103.
When this will happen:
Targeted Release: Microsoft will begin rolling out early August 2024 and expect to complete by mid-August 2024.
General Availability (Worldwide, GCC): Microsoft will begin rolling out mid-August 2024 and expect to complete by late August 2024.
General Availability (GCC High, DoD): Microsoft will begin rolling out late September 2024 and expect to complete by early October 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
The new bidirectional capability allows tenants to hire fewer interpreters to do live translation in Teams meetings, reducing the operation costs for tenants.
?
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically with no admin action required. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.
8. Automatic location updates on bookable desks
Before this rollout, users can indicate in Microsoft Teams if they are in office or remote by manually setting their location by selecting their profile photo at the top right of Teams. With this rollout, Microsoft is introducing automatic location updates on bookable desks to make it easier for users to keep their work location up to date and connect with others in the office.
?
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 401118.
When this will happen:
General availability (Worldwide): Microsoft will begin rolling out early August 2024 and expect to complete by late August 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
Bookable desks refer to unassigned seats in the office that are equipped with devices such as monitors or other peripherals. Admins can associate these devices to a workspace account using the Teams Rooms Pro Management portal. This association will allow users to automatically claim a desk, and (in future) will provide IT with valuable usage analytics and reports. Learn more: Setting up Bookable Desks in Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn. After configuring bookable desks, admins can enable automatic location updates at the tenant level or for a specific user group. Then, users can enable the feature at Teams > Settings (three-dot menu in top right of the screen) > Privacy > Sharing your work location. After users enable the feature, their work location will automatically update to In the office when they connect to a bookable desk, if their location was previously set to Unknown or Remote.
领英推荐
To help users find this feature, after an admin enables the feature, the banner "Looks like you're in the office" will appear the first time a user plugs into a bookable desk.
After a user enables automatic location updates, the banner "You're connected to your organization's network or device" will appear once when they plug into a bookable desk. The banner confirms that the user has successfully enabled automatic location update.
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. To prepare for this feature, Microsoft recommends communicating this new feature to your users and admin team and sharing instructions if needed. After this feature rolls out, admins can enable automatic location updates at a tenant level or for a specific user group. Then, users can enable automatic location detection in Teams Settings?> Privacy?as described earlier.
C. Microsoft 365
1. Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint: Protect sensitive files with dynamic watermarking
Dynamic watermarking is a new sensitivity label setting that will add watermark text containing the consuming user’s information onto content in files created in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Sensitivity labels from Microsoft Purview Information Protection help you classify and protect your organization's data. Learn more: (Preview) Dynamic watermarking for sensitivity labels in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint - Microsoft Community Hub
This message applies to Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on the web, Desktop/Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS platforms.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 400717.
?
When this will happen:
Public Preview: Microsoft will begin rolling out mid-July 2024 and expect to complete by early August 2024.
General Availability (Worldwide): Microsoft will begin rolling out to Current Channel mid-November 2024 and expect to complete by end of November 2024.
?
The rest of the channels will follow in line with their normal cadence.
?
How this will affect your organization:
Before the rollout: Admins are not able to configure dynamic watermarking though sensitivity labels in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.
After the rollout, refer to the admin documentation to configure dynamic watermarks in your tenant. This feature is off by default. Admins must configure the feature before it is accessible to users.
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.
2. Microsoft 365 Backup is now generally available
Microsoft 365 Backup will soon be generally available in all commercial cloud environments. You can sign up for the product in Microsoft admin center under Settings > Microsoft 365 Backup once you have set up pay-as-you-go with a Microsoft Azure subscription.
Cybersecurity threats and ransomware attacks are on a high worldwide. Microsoft 365 Backup helps limit the operational and financial impact these attacks cause by providing a way to restore Microsoft OneDrive accounts, Microsoft SharePoint sites, and Microsoft Exchange Online mailboxes to a healthy pre-attack point in time in just hours.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 188799.
When this will happen:
General Availability (Worldwide): Microsoft will begin rolling out on July 31st 2024 and expect to complete by mid-August 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
Speed: Microsoft 365 Backup provides quick restore, enabling users to recover a healthy state of their data in hours instead of weeks or months.
Security and privacy: Because Microsoft 365 Backup data is stored in the Microsoft 365 trust boundary and because the underlying Microsoft 365 Backup storage API platform limits its scope to just the backup and restore operations, you do not have to grant an application for overly permissive access to all of your private data. You also get the benefit of reducing your security breach surface and maintaining a more simplified security and privacy domain.
?
Learn more about the product: Microsoft 365 Backup (Preview) documentation.
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically with no admin action required. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.
3. Microsoft 365 admin center: Admins can no longer receive user passwords in email as of August 30, 2024
Microsoft will be retiring the Send password in email feature from Microsoft 365 admin center starting August 30, 2024. Instead, Microsoft recommend using the new Print option in the Microsoft admin center to save the user account details and share them in a secure manner with your users.
Admins will no longer be able to receive usernames and passwords in email after this change is implemented.
This change will happen automatically by the specified date. No admin action is required.
?
4. Microsoft Outlook: Contact deduplication
Microsoft Outlook on the web and new Outlook for Windows are enhancing users' experience by automatically hiding contacts that are exact duplicates or proper subsets of other contacts. This means that if you have multiple entries for the same person, Outlook will consolidate them, keeping only the most complete contact visible. This update aims to declutter your contact list, making it easier to navigate and manage.
When this will happen:
Public Preview: Microsoft will begin rolling out late August 2024 and expect to complete by late September 2024.
General Availability (Worldwide): Microsoft will begin rolling out late September 2024 and expect to complete by late September 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
Impact on different Outlook clients: Cleanup will affect the Outlook web app and new Outlook for Windows, while classic Outlook for Windows, Outlook on Mac, and Outlook mobile will remain unchanged, showing all contacts.
?
Synchronization Across Platforms: Updates made to any contact will be synchronized across all Outlook clients.
How to access hidden duplicate contacts: Exact or proper subset duplicate contacts are automatically hidden to streamline your view. They remain accessible via classic Outlook for Windows, Outlook on Mac, and Outlook mobile. Users can also export contacts from any Outlook app to view them.
How users can determine which contacts are subsets/hidden versus supersets: This is currently a manual process that can only be completed by reviewing contacts from within classic Outlook for Windows, Outlook on Mac, or Outlook mobile. There is no method for admins to automate this process at this time.
Exporting Contacts: If users need to export their contacts for review in another tool, including the hidden ones, you can export contacts in all Outlook clients.
?
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically with no admin action required. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.
5. Microsoft Outlook: Intelligent recap integration
Coming soon for new Microsoft Outlook: Intelligent recap is an AI-powered feature from Microsoft Teams that will help users catch up on missed meetings with AI-generated notes, follow-up tasks, name mentions, topics, chapters, speaker identification, and more. This feature can now be directly accessed from the calendar in new Outlook. This message applies to new Outlook for Windows and new Outlook for the web. All new Outlook users will be able to access Recap artifacts in Outlook, with the specific artifacts available depending on their license status. Users with Microsoft Teams Premium or Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 licenses will see the full set of Recap artifacts. Users without Teams Premium or Copilot for Microsoft 365 licenses will see the basic set of Recap artifacts, such as recordings, transcription, and shared files.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID?403099.
When this will happen:
General Availability (Worldwide): Microsoft will begin rolling out mid-August 2024 and expect to complete by late August 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
Before this rollout: New Outlook users did not have access to intelligent recap from Teams.
After this rollout
Shortly after a meeting ends, and if the meeting is recorded or transcribed, participants will see?View recap?and a set of all meeting artifacts in the new Outlook calendar.
User can access the Recap feature from the new Outlook calendar in two ways:
In the Meeting summary, users can interact with Recap artifacts features such as speakers, name mentions, tasks, and files, which are now automatically available after a meeting, just as they would with Recap artifacts in Teams Chat.
The intelligent recap feature is on by default and available to all users with the appropriate licenses and for all meetings with transcription or recording enabled.
Select a meeting in the new Outlook calendar and then select?View recap?to review the meeting Recap tab in Teams:
The meeting Recap tab in Teams:
If a user selects and opens the meeting from the calendar, the Meeting summary opens in Outlook, and the user can select the?View recap?button to go to the Recap tab in Teams:
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.
Before rollout, Microsoft will update this post with revised documentation.
6. New Microsoft Outlook for Windows: Receive reminders when offline
Coming soon for new Microsoft Outlook for Windows: While offline, users will continue to receive reminders without interruption and can snooze and dismiss reminders.
When this will happen:
General Availability (Worldwide, GCC, GCC High, and DoD): Microsoft will begin rolling out late August 2024 and expect to complete by early October 2024.
How this will affect your organization:
Before this rollout: Users were not always able to receive reminders from new Outlook for Windows when offline.
After this rollout, to enable this feature, users will need to make sure Reminders are enabled in Settings:
?
1.?Outlook for Windows > Settings (gear icon in top right of screen) > General > Notifications.
2.? Expand the Calendar section and select Reminder as the notification style.
?
Users can also manually display Reminders from View > Reminders in Mail and Calendar views.
Users can access Reminders on the Outlook's View tab:
?
This feature is on by default and available to all new Outlook for Windows users.
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.
Before rollout, Microsoft will update this post with revised documentation.
7. Python in Excel will be generally available starting August 2024
In August 2023, Microsoft released Python in Excel to Public Preview for users with access to the Microsoft 365 Insiders program. With this rollout, Microsoft is making Python in Excel with standard compute generally available for all eligible users in your organization and including a self-purchase option for premium compute. Python in Excel is only available in Microsoft Excel for Windows at this time, but other platforms will follow at a later date.
?
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 406770.
?
When this will happen:
General Availability (Worldwide): Microsoft will begin rolling out late August 2024 and expect to complete by late October 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
Before this rollout: Python in Excel was only available to users in the Insiders program.
After this rollout
Python in Excel allows you to bring the capabilities of Python directly into the Excel grid. As part of this rollout, users with access to Excel for Windows will be able to add Python formulas to their workbooks without any installation required. These Python formulas will be run by Excel in a secure container on the Microsoft Cloud with enterprise-level security as a compliant Microsoft 365 connected experience. To access Python in Excel, users must have access to Excel for Windows, and have access to connected experiences in Microsoft Office.
?
As part of this rollout, Microsoft will also release the Python in Excel add-on license that gives users premium Python compute for faster calculation times for more powerful data analysis. Note: Some premium Python compute will be included with a user’s Microsoft 365 subscription each month, giving them access to faster calculation speeds. After they have used all of their included premium compute, they can continue to use the Python in Excel feature with standard Python compute.
?
If you would like users in your organization to get access to premium compute, you can purchase and assign them a Python in Excel add-on license in the Microsoft admin center. The Python in Excel add-on license will also be released as a self-service purchased product, which means that eligible end users will be able to request a license or purchase a license through in-app prompts in Excel. Learn more about self-service purchases.
If you have disabled self-service purchases in your tenant, the end user will be able to submit a license request to you. These grouped notifications will appear in the Microsoft 365 admin center and you can manage these requests in the Requests tab on the Licenses page. Learn more: Manage self-service license requests in the Microsoft 365 admin center | Microsoft Learn.
?
The Python in Excel feature is on by default.
Python formulas in an Excel workbook:
??
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation.
8. Microsoft 365 admin center: New Actions feature in Experience insights (preview)
Coming soon to Experience insights (preview) in the Microsoft 365 admin center: The new Actions feature will enable you to track the actions you take to drive user engagement and success for Microsoft 365. You can measure the impact of your actions, providing insights into how each action correlates with changes in usage, NPS (Net Promoter Score), feedback, and help article views. This empowers you to make data-driven decisions and continuously improve your strategies for user engagement and satisfaction. Later this year, Actions will also support goal setting and goal progress tracking.
?
When this will happen:
Public Preview: Microsoft will begin rolling out late July 2024 and expect to complete by late September 2024.
?
How this will affect your organization:
Before the rollout: Admins were unable to automatically track user engagement actions and success for Microsoft 365.
After the rollout
Experience insights (preview) will be accessible by Global admin, Global reader, Reports reader, and User experience success manager roles.
For Global admin and Global readers: To access the new feature, go to the Microsoft 365 admin home page, and select Dashboard view and switch to Experience Insights (preview). Select Actions.
If you’re a member of the Reports reader or User experience success manager roles, after you sign in to the Microsoft 365 admin center, you will automatically go to the Experience insights (preview) dashboard page. Switch to Experience Insights (preview) and select Actions.
This feature is on by default and accessible to all users with the appropriate permissions.
Learn more about Experience insights: Microsoft 365 Experience insights dashboard - Microsoft 365 admin | Microsoft Learn
?
Access Actions from Experience insights:
Track and view your impact with?Actions:
What you need to do to prepare:
This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required before the rollout. You may want to notify your admins about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.
9. Microsoft Excel: Publish to Power BI retires starting August 19, 2024
The?Publish to Power BI?feature will no longer be available in Microsoft Excel in Microsoft 365. We recommend users transition to Microsoft Power BI on the web (also known as the Power BI service), for their publishing needs. We will remove?Publish to Power BI?from Excel in Microsoft 365 starting August 19, 2024, and?Publish to Power BI?will not be included in the Excel 2024 perpetual release. This does not impact prior versions of on-premises Office.
The?Publish to Power BI?feature is no longer up to date with the publishing experience in the Power BI service. The Power BI service has all the capabilities of the Excel?Publish to Power BI?feature and more, such as non-default workspaces, workspace folders, and modern format data models, which are not available through Excel publishing.
This retirement will not impact any existing workbooks or workbook artifacts in the Power BI service or in Excel.
Users will need to transition to the Power BI service for their publishing needs. The Power BI service can do everything that the?Publish to Power BI?feature does and more. Microsoft recommends using these workflows in the Power BI service:
Upload your workbook to the Power BI service
?
Export workbook data to the Power BI service
10. Product transitions to the cloud.microsoft domain - June 2024
?
The cloud.microsoft domain was?provisioned in early 2023?to provide a unified, trusted, and dedicated DNS domain space to host Microsoft’s first-party authenticated SaaS products and experiences. This post is to inform admins that the following Microsoft products and scenarios are now available at the cloud.microsoft domain, in parallel with the previous domains.
A full list of product experiences already being delivered on this domain can be found here:?Unified cloud.microsoft domain for Microsoft 365 apps - Microsoft 365 Enterprise | Microsoft Learn.
?
When this will happen:
The services above are already available on cloud.microsoft, in parallel to their previous domains. You can expect the previous domains to be redirected to cloud.microsoft in the coming months.
How this will affect your organization:
?
What you need to do to prepare:
D. Microsoft Power Automate
1. Use undo and redo while you build cloud flows in the designer announcement
Microsoft is announcing the Use undo and redo while you build cloud flows in the designer feature. This feature allows you to build flows with Copilot, or experiment knowing that you can undo any of your actions. This feature will reach general availability on August 25, 2024. How does this affect me? When enabled, this feature will allow you to undo a change you make to your flow manually or through Copilot. If you change your mind and want to return it to your flow, you can use redo to bring back the change you removed with undo. What do I need to do to prepare? This message is for awareness and no action is required. If you would like more information on this feature, please visit?Use undo and redo while you build cloud flows in the designer.
2. Select instead of type email addresses in Outlook and Teams announcement
?Microsoft is announcing the select instead of type email addresses in Outlook and Teams feature. This feature allows you to choose from email suggestions as you are typing email address in Outlook and Teams action 'To' field. This feature will reach general availability on August 5, 2024. How does this affect me? When enabled, this feature allows you to choose from suggestions as you are typing email address in Outlook and Teams action 'To' field. What do I need to do to prepare? This message is for awareness and no action is required.
3. New Excel actions in Power Automate for desktop announcement
Microsoft is announcing new Excel actions in Power Automate for desktop. Starting on July 23, 2024, the actions pane will include the following dedicated Excel actions:
How does this affect me? These actions provide new capabilities empowering makers to enhance their desktop flows involving Excel. What do I need to do to prepare? This message is for awareness and no action is required.
Thank you,
Subscribe and follow Penthara Technologies for more monthly updates.