Are you ready for loads of Microsoft 365 tricks AND treats?
October 2023 brought some spooky new offerings: Power Apps leader in 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Applications Platform, Video search improvements, new Intelligence & Search admin homepage, OneDrive colorful folders, New Microsoft Teams, Viva Goals + Planner, SharePoint: BCS retirement in Microsoft 365, and more. Details and screenshots below, including our audible companion: The Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop: October 2023 podcast episode – all to help answer, "What's rolling out now for SharePoint and related technologies into Microsoft 365?"
In the podcast episode, this month we summon, I mean, talk with Miceile Barrett and Arvind Mishra, Principal product managers on the OneDrive team working across commercial and consumer offerings. You'll hear Miceile and Arvind talk about recently released features like colorful folders and new shared views for People and Meetings, and then we dive into the Oct. 3rd moment focused on all the news and announcements about what's next for OneDrive - including Copilot in OneDrive, full OneDrive experiences in Teams and Outlook, the new "Open in app" feature, and more.
All features listed below began reanimating, I mean, rolling out to Targeted Release customers in Microsoft 365 as of October 2023 (possibly early November 2023).
Inform and engage with dynamic employee experiences
Build your intelligent intranet on SharePoint in Microsoft 365 and get the benefits of investing in business outcomes – reducing IT and development costs, increasing business speed and agility, and up-leveling the dynamic, personalized, and welcoming nature of your intranet.
Microsoft again named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms
We are thrilled to announce that for the fifth time in a row, Microsoft has been named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms**.
Microsoft Power Apps enables developers of all kinds to innovate and create solutions faster, while giving organizations the governance tools to enable transformation on a massive scale. Our continued leadership in the industry is underscored by two unique areas of innovation. The first is the use of Copilot and generative AI to dramatically accelerate development and open new opportunities for more productive end user experiences. The second is advancement in large-scale security and governance, enabling organizations to empower thousands of developers with increased visibility and control.
In the SharePoint world, we love the combined value between Power Apps and SharePoint lists and libraries. There are many ways to build design and configure Power Apps, and the work the teams do to deliver inline value to uplevel a simple document library or a list of information into viable business solutions, bringing in and connecting data sources and workflows is amazing. And beyond the Gartner Magic Quadrant, the Power Platform team is delivering on so much value today with a healthy roadmap of what's to come.
We invite you to read the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms report to learn about why Microsoft is recognized as a Leader in this market for the fifth consecutive time. And even more, we invite you to build with Power Apps.
*Gartner is a registered trademark and service mark and Magic Quadrant is a registered trademark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and are used herein with permission. All rights reserved. Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.
Source: Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Application Platforms, Oleksandr Matvitskyy, Kimihiko Iijima, and 4 more, 17 October 2023.
Microsoft Search: Video Search in Bing, Office.com, and SharePoint
With the importance of video on the rise, it's important to find videos more easily throughout your organization. Our new Video tab within Search results will improve video search in your organization by having a dedicated place to search through OneDrive and SharePoint videos. This Video tab will appear on Microsoft Search in Bing/Office and SharePoint.
We're starting with OneDrive and SharePoint results updates, with an updated experience in Stream itself to come at a later time.
- Roadmap ID 117552
Microsoft Search: Introducing the New Search and Intelligence homepage
The new homepage provides you with a single-entry point to access a range of Microsoft Search features and functions, such as Graph connectors, user feedback, Microsoft Search educational content, and more.
The new homepage will be available to all Search Admins, Global Admins, Search Editors, and Global Editors when they log in to the Search & Intelligence section of the Microsoft 365 admin center. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to Settings > and find the "Search & Intelligence" page, and let us know what you think.
Teamwork updates across SharePoint team sites, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams
Microsoft 365 is designed to be a universal toolkit for teamwork – to give you the right tools for the right task, along with common services to help you seamlessly work across applications. SharePoint is the intelligent content service that powers teamwork – to better collaborate on proposals, projects, and campaigns throughout your organization – with integration across Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Yammer, Stream, Planner and much more.
OneDrive Oct. 3rd News/Launch event with Jeff Teper and product leads
The next generation of OneDrive includes new file views, governance controls, creation tools, and Copilot to on your files from SharePoint and OneDrive so you can ask open-ended questions related to an individual file or get a summary of the content to help you quickly search, organize and extract information. And, these new experiences aren’t just “in” OneDrive, they are coming to Teams and Outlook for a consistent and rich file experience across Microsoft 365.
Catch the news from the 3rd, read their new blog "Unveiling the Next Generation of OneDrive" by OD VP - Jason Moore with all the details, and a new, related episode of Sync Up to go deeper with the product team.
Dive into the latest Sync Up episode: "Behind the Scenes—The Future of File Management" (also embedded for inline playback below):
- Read: "Unveiling the Next Generation of OneDrive" by Jason Moore
General availability of the new Microsoft Teams app for Windows and Mac
We are excited to announce general availability of the new Microsoft Teams app for Windows and Mac including education customers. We’re also beginning to roll out new Teams to public preview for our Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) and government cloud customers (GCC, GCC-H, DoD).
Upgrading to new Teams is quick and seamless -- no migration is required! Classic Teams users will be automatically upgraded to new Teams in the coming months. To get started on your new Teams journey today, simply flip the toggle in the upper-left corner of the classic Teams app. With just one click, you can join millions of users who are relying on new Teams to stay connected with colleagues, partners, and customers and achieve more together, on the New Teams that is:
- A faster app optimized for performance on multiple platforms
- A simpler user experience that makes it easier to do more in fewer clicks
- Review “Designing New Teams” (article)
- A more flexible app for seamless cross-tenant communication and collaboration.
- AND… New Teams is the foundation for next-generation AI experiences, such as Microsoft Copilot.
Related technology
Viva Goals – Enhanced Planner integration
Viva Goals supports integration with Microsoft and third-party apps and platforms so that the OKR implementation process is as simple, effective, and seamless as possible. You will now be able to filter tasks by buckets and labels and integrate directly with specific tasks mapped to specific OKRs -- enabling easier portfolio management and customizability for how your organization structures planning.
It's a great combination to define goals and then establish trackable tasks to accomplish them.
- Roadmap ID 164739
- Learn more.
Set 'Out of Office' from Teams Mobile Application
OOF, there it is! No matter if you’re OOF or OOO, now you can set up 'Out of Office' from the Teams Mobile Application itself on iOS and Android; previously desktop or web Teams client was required to perform this action.
Give it a go when your OOF and on-the-go -- set 'Out of Office' with an Autoreply from the Teams iOS or Android application itself by clicking on the avatar and clicking on 'Out of Office'.
Business Connectivity Services (BCS) retirement
SharePoint has a long history of helping users work with external data inside the SharePoint user experience. As SharePoint has evolved into a cloud-first service, so too have the options for customers that wish to integrate with external data sources. To simplify these options and provide the best experience for these scenarios going forward, Microsoft is announcing its plan to retire Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in Microsoft 365 and focus on Microsoft Power Apps as its replacement technology.
- Timeline:
- October 2, 2023: Retirement announcement and customers can proactively set a property to block Business Connectivity services features within their tenant.
- October 30, 2023: Microsoft will begin blocking Business Connectivity Services features based on the tenant property set by the customer.
- January 8, 2024: Microsoft will block Business Connectivity Services features in new Microsoft 365 tenants by default, as well as in tenants who haven’t used the feature since October 30, 2023.
- September 30, 2024: Business Connectivity Services is fully retired in Microsoft 365.
We encourage you to explore using Power Apps to replace their Business Connectivity Services solutions. Although there's no direct migration from Business Connectivity Services to Power Apps, it does support a modern, cloud-first external data connectivity experience. Power Apps can integrate with a variety of Microsoft 365 services and external data sources through extensible connector technology, including SharePoint, Dynamics 365, SQL Server, and others. It also supports integrating with on-premises data sources through the on-premises data gateway.
- Support update for Business Connectivity Services in Microsoft 365
- Support article with additional resources
Upcoming events
- 365 EduCon - Chicago | Oct.30 - Nov.4, 2023 (Chicago, IL)
- Community Days - Mexico City | Nov.2.2023 (HOTEL GALERÍA PLAZA REFORMA)
- Microsoft Ignite | Nov. 14-17, 2023 (Hybrid: Seattle, WA and online)
- CollabDays - Lisbon @CollabDaysLIS | Nov. 25 (Lisbon, Portugal - University Institute of Lisbon (ISCTE-IUL))
- European SharePoint Conference | Nov.27-30 in (Amsterdam, Netherlands)
November 2023 teasers
Psst, still here? Still scrolling the page looking for more roadmap goodness? If so, here is a few teasers of what’s to come to production next month…
- Teaser #1: People Search Card in Viva Connections [Roadmap ID: 173078]
- Teaser #2: Loop components in Channels and Loop Embed Mode in Teams [Roadmap ID: 123491]
… shhh, tell everyone.
Helpful, ongoing change management resources
- "Stay on top of Office 365 changes"
- "Message center in Office 365"
- Install the Office 365 admin app; view Message Center posts and stay current with push notifications.
- Microsoft 365 public roadmap + pre-filtered URL for SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer and Stream roadmap items.
- SharePoint Facebook | Twitter | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback
- Follow me to catch news and interesting SharePoint things: @mkashman; warning, occasional bad puns may fly in a tweet or two here and there.
Thanks for tuning in and/or reading this episode/blog of the Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop – October 2023. We are open to your feedback in comments below to hear how both the Roadmap Pitstop podcast episodes and blogs can be improved over time.
Engage with us. Ask those questions that haunt you. Push us where you want and need to get the best information and insights. We are here to put both our and your best change management foot forward.
Stay safe out there on the road’map ahead. And thanks for listening and reading.
Thanks for your time,
Mark Kashman – Senior product manager (SharePoint/Lists) | Microsoft)
