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Microsoft SharePoint Blog
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SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop December 2024

Mark-Kashman's avatar
Mark-Kashman
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Jan 02, 2025

A look at all the SharePoint goodness that rolled out in December 2024, plus a little year in review: The top five features of 2024, a quick list of apps we said goodbye to, and a few 2025 predictions.

Happiest of holidays, and welcome to 2025! We nudged this one into the New Years to fully finalize and realize 2024 and wholly welcome 2025.


So, first: Happy New Year!!! We made it -- with a nice kicker of a last month.


December 2024 brought some great new offerings: Microsoft Syntex pay-as-you-go: Simple document processing model, Viva Connections: Power Apps card, Viva Pulse now included in Microsoft 365 Copilot, Microsoft Search for Bing retirement, Outlook.cloud.microsoft, Add external content links to Viva Learning, Microsoft 365 data residency: New Zealand, the big, upcoming SharePoint Event + AMA (Jan.29.2025 - 9 AM PST), and more. Details and screenshots below, including our audible companion: The Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop: December 2024 podcast episode – all to help answer, "What's rolling out now for SharePoint and related technologies into Microsoft 365?"

All features listed below began rolling out to Targeted Release customers in Microsoft 365 as of December 2024 (possibly early January 2025). 


And to have a little year-end / year-beginning informative fun, we've added a few 'best of' style sections scattered about: A look at the 'top five features of 2024', a quick list of apps we said goodbye to - or are soon to say goodbye to, and a few 2025 ‘predictions.’ I also grabbed a little AI-focused audio segment from Jeff Teper during his ESPC24 opening keynote that you can listen to at the end of the related The Intrazone podcast episode above.

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 Syntex pay-as-you-go service: Simple document processing prebuilt model 

This new prebuilt model uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) and AI to detect the primary language of the file, key-value pairs, tables, selection marks, and barcodes. As with other models, it can be configured to extract information and populate specific library columns. It will appear alongside the other pre-built models, like contracts, receipts, and invoices, available via the same service. If the prebuilt service is on, this new model will also appear in the menu as a new option. 

In addition to extracting detected elements, this model can also detect the primary language of the file. This information can be extracted to a Detected language column when the model is applied to a library, which can then be used for other content processing, like document translation. 

On the extractor details page, you see the document area on the right of the page and the Extractors panel on the left. The Extractors panel shows the list of extractors that have been identified in the document.

A reminder: Microsoft Syntex services are billed on a pay-as-you-go basis. These services use an Azure subscription for billing and track usage and cost with a Syntex meter. 

  

Microsoft Viva Connections: Power Apps card  

The Power Apps card for Viva Connections allows you to bring your power cards and applications onto the Viva Connections dashboard for quick access. The Viva Connections dashboard provides fast and easy access to information and job-related tasks. Content on the dashboard can also be targeted to users in specific roles, markets, and job functions.

“Introduction to Power Apps card support in Viva Connections” with Pooja Gulati and Supreet Singh:

With the Power Apps card, you design a lightweight card using your Power Apps account to add simple dashboard tasks like checking sales requests, seeing daily sales numbers, submitting vacation requests, starting shipment requests, and more. 

Design your Power Apps experience and 'link it in,' getting the benefit of broader use and distribution of the Viva Connections dashboard - for the whole of your organization.  

 

Microsoft Viva Pulse experience is now included with a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription 

This applies to Pulse on Windows and Mac desktop, on the web, and on iOS & Android. Users with a Pulse license, or a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, can create and send Pulse requests to people in their tenant.  

Viva Pulse enables team leaders to send brief surveys using research-backed templates to get a snapshot of team sentiment and act on feedback. Additionally, Viva Pulse reporting enables analysis of results and trends so leads can pinpoint what's working well and which areas to focus on over time. 

Viva Pulse home page within Microsoft Teams.

The licensing applies to the creation and sending of a Pulse request. No license is required when responding to a Pulse request - Anyone can respond. So, with Viva Pulse as a new component of the Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription, anyone with a pulse can create a Pulse! It's the easiest way to check for the heartbeat of your team within Microsoft 365. 

 

UPCOMING EVENT | "SharePoint: From Concept to Creation to Impact + Live AMA" 

Discover how you can push the boundaries with SharePoint to create stunning sites, publish engaging news, manage workflows, collaborate seamlessly, and leverage agents to transform your intranet. Join in and you're guaranteed to boost Your SharePoint IQ! We'll dive into simple authoring, the dynamics of compelling content, and showcase strategies to amplify the reach and impact of your knowledge and communications. 

Save the date: Wednesday, January 29th, 2025, from 9:00 AM - 10:00 AM PST. 

Go to https://aka.ms/SharePointEvent and register today.  

Tell your friends, colleagues, and social follows. We will see you there.  

Top 5 SharePoint and related tech items that shipped in 2024 

Related technology 

Microsoft Outlook has transitioned to the cloud.microsoft domain

Now there's a new, secure URL to get to your inbox; and I'm certain an inbox not-so-zero awaits us all after the holiday season. And, to not be so Scroogey about it, let's talk about how.  

We've talked about this broader transition a few times, and anything that amounts to more trust between you and Microsoft, well, I'll highlight it. 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.  

To get to Outlook on the Web, type in: https://outlook.cloud.microsoft/.

So far, apps like OneNote, Planner, Loop, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Viva Engage, and more, have been onboarded to this new domain, with more coming onboard as we continue to invest and make progress. 

Now, to get to Outlook on the Web, type in: https://outlook.cloud.microsoft/ - It is a consistent way to access your Microsoft 365 apps and services. 

  

Add external content links to Viva Learning tabs and featured sets  

This means you can pull in external content from providers like YouTube, Vimeo, news articles, and Stream - I mean Clipchamp - can now be included in two new areas within Viva Learning – featured sets and learning tabs. 

Featured sets are curated sets of courses that you can choose to display prominently to the entire organization. Featured sets previously leveraged content solely from SharePoint, connected learning management systems (LMS), and third-party providers. And now, admins can include external URLs as part of these sets. 

Learning tabs allow users to find, curate, and share content in Teams channels or chats. The content available for learning tabs can include any content available to the organization and now includes the option to insert links to external content providers. 

Adding content to learning tabs now features an option to add linked content, shown in the box on the right side below “add content to your tab.

Using a link to add learning content brings new flexibility to the greatest learning aggregation app in the Viva Suite, Viva Learning.  

 

Microsoft 365 data residency offerings now available in New Zealand 

We are excited to announce that Microsoft 365 and Advanced Data Residency (ADR) are now available for commercial customers in our new cloud region in New Zealand. Multi-geo Capabilities for New Zealand are rolling out now. 

Microsoft 365 and Advanced Data Residency (ADR) are now available for commercial customers in our new cloud region in New Zealand.

With the availability of Microsoft 365, we now offer ADR (and soon Multi-Geo) add-ons to provide customers provisioned in New Zealand with greater control over the location of their cloud data.

ADR provides guarantees that certain customer data will be stored at rest (in this case, in New Zealand) for several core online services, including Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot, Exchange Online Protection, Office for the Web, Viva Connections, and certain Purview products.

Multi-Geo Capabilities allows customers to configure in which geographies their Microsoft 365 user data is stored at rest, on a per-user basis and within a single tenant. This applies to Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams and Microsoft 365 Copilot are available for Multi-Geo configuration. 

This is a continuation of a series of datacenter launches over the last 20 months, including launches in Poland, Italy, Mexico, Spain, and Taiwan. Through the development of the new region, public– and private–sector entities, large enterprises, and small and medium-size businesses will be able to use scalable, highly available and resilient public cloud services, while also helping companies meet their data residency, security and compliance needs.   

 

Microsoft Search in Bing retirement  

The work search experience available on Bing.com, will be deprecated, such that the last day of availability is on March 31, 2025. The core Microsoft Search experience remains accessible through Office.com, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft365.com. An FAQ and further details will be available mid-January at https://aka.ms/MSBFAQ, and will be updated regularly. 

  • Message Center ID: MC961557 

January 2025 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: Microsoft Viva Connections coming to the SharePoint app bar [Roadmap ID: 468290]  
  • Teaser #2: New Pay-as-you-go billing model for SharePoint agents [PayG] [Message Center ID: MC952883] 

 

… shhh, tell everyone. 

 

And while we're looking into 2025 - I thought I'd throw in a few "predictions," squarely based on the public roadmap - mostly to highlight a few things I'm excited about are coming within Q1 of CY25 (January-March 2025); these are five fun ones that I feel encapsulate how Microsoft 365 will evolve for the better in early 2025:  

  1. Clipchamp Copilot video creator | Roadmap ID: 471441 
  2. Microsoft Loop – Add a Loop Workspace to your Teams Channel | Roadmap ID: 472022 
  3. OneDrive: Ask Copilot questions about images | Roadmap ID: 469499 
  4. SharePoint: Pages authoring accessibility checker | Roadmap ID: 470603 
  5. Microsoft Teams: Improved Microsoft Lists links in Teams chats and channels | Roadmap ID 419812 

Helpful, ongoing change management resources  

Thanks for tuning in and/or reading this episode/blog of the Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop – December 2024. 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.  

A bonus for you if you made it this far – the full ESPC24 opening keynote with Jeff Teper, Kendra Springer, Denise Trabona, and Michel Bouman – where we pulled Jeff’s audio from for the AI quotes/segment with The Intrazone episode. Watch it now, "Collaborative Apps in the AI Era":  

 

Thanks for your time,  

Mark Kashman – senior product manager (SharePoint/Lists) | Microsoft)

  

The Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop - December 2024 graphic showssome of the highlighted release features.
Updated Jan 03, 2025
Version 2.0
the intrazone
  • MichaelOliv's avatar
    MichaelOliv
    Iron Contributor
    Jan 03, 2025

    Microsoft Search in Bing was one of the main reasons to force Edge in our company. I'm waiting to see how the new operation will work. Depending on that, we'll see if we still impose Edge or if we let users choose to use Chrome or Edge.

  • AnoRnymous's avatar
    AnoRnymous
    Iron Contributor
    Jan 06, 2025

    Will there ever be an update for Microsoft Roadmap #100503, better known as "Lookup column supports yes/no, choice, and multi choice + formatting"? It looks to be disappeared from the roadmap. When will this be released/implemented?

    The "List roadmap" back then also noted "Even more lookup column type support", but it appears to have never see the light of day unfortunately.