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Microsoft SharePoint Blog
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SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop: September 2022

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Mark-Kashman
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Oct 05, 2022

We snuck a few things in this month, just before the next wave of disclosures come mid-October during Microsoft Ignite 2022. Innovation happens monthly – none of this waiting around…

 

September 2022 brought some great new offerings: Cultural site template for Hispanic Heritage Month, Manage site access based on sensitivity label, Viva Learning cards for the Viva Connections Dashboard, New 'Activity' column in OneDrive, Granular Policies for OneDrive: Request Files, Quick Access to SharePoint document libraries in Office backstage, Schedule send for Teams chat, Video clips in Teams chat (Preview), new Stream mobile app (beta) - iOS and Android, improved Adobe PDF experience in Microsoft Teams, and more.

 

Details and screenshots below, including our audible companion: The Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop: September 2022 podcast episode – all to help answer, "What's rolling out now for SharePoint and related technologies into Microsoft 365?"

 

 

In the podcast episode, I chat with Sesha Mani (Twitter | LinkedIn), Principal group product manager on the SharePoint team focused on all the goodness SharePoint and OneDrive IT Pros can do to manage and control their collaborative, content management environments. You'll hear what we're doing to make it easier to protect your sites at a more-granular level, easy-to-switch profiles in Edge, user-defined permissions for Office files, and protected PDF support. 

 

Sesha Mani, Principal group product manager (SharePoint / Microsoft) [Intrazone guest]

All features listed below began rolling out to Targeted Release customers in Microsoft 365 as of September 2022 (possibly early October 2022).

 

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.

 

New cultural site template: Hispanic Heritage Month

We have been introducing Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) cultural site templates. Our second cultural template we are delivering celebrates Hispanic Heritage Month. Our first offering helps celebrate Pride Month.

 

Hispanic Heritage Month site template for SharePoint in Microsoft 365.

There is a lot of content and structure that appears by default – to save you time – and all can be further customized to meet the unique needs of your organization, site features like:

    • Home page with a beautiful, unique theme
    • A distinct page template
    • Pre-populated content and web parts
    • And it's all mobile ready

 

Configure Navigation Links to Open in a New Tab

With this update, you configure how you would like your navigation links to open. You will have the option to be able to choose to open in the same tab or in a new tab for your site, hub, and global navigation items.

 

Manage site access based on sensitivity label

With this update, administrators will be able to use Conditional Access policies and associated sensitivity labels to require additional user authentication for accessing sensitive SharePoint sites when the user's context does not meet the requirements of the site.

 

Select what a policy applies to, choose Authentication context (Preview), and select the check box for the authentication context that you created.

You might want additional authentication for accessing certain sensitive sites. For example, when a user visits a highly sensitive site labeled Confidential, you might want to enforce a step-up authentication with granular policies such as multi-factor authentication (MFA) when the user's context does not meet the access requirement of the site.

Once an admin configures the sensitivity label with authentication context, when a user applies a sensitivity label, the associated granular contextual and conditional policies are automatically enforced.

 

Microsoft Viva Learning cards for the Viva Connections Dashboard

Viva Learning is an enterprise learning and training experience that acts as a one-step solution for all the learning needs of your organization. Viva Connections gives everyone a personalized destination to discover relevant news, conversations, and the tools they need to complete daily tasks. Both Viva experiences can be accessed on mobile and desktop devices in Microsoft Teams and are a part of the Microsoft Viva suite.

 

Note, in the lower-right-hand side, you see a Viva Learning card appear within the Viva Connections Dashboard.

You’ll be able to integrate Viva Learning and Viva Connections experiences by using the Viva Learning card on the Viva Connections Dashboard. This new feature will enable users to track their learning assignments directly within Viva Connections dashboard. When users interact with the Viva Learning card, they’ll be able to complete learning courses within the flow of the work in Teams.

  • Plus a little bonus, if you didn't catch all the 9/22 action, Microsoft disclosed a ton of Microsoft Viva news to further "Empower and energize employees" – includes a Viva Goals update, and intro to Viva Pulse, the new Viva Engage “Leadership Corner”, Viva Amplify, Viva Learning + LinkedIn, Answers in Viva, People in Viva, and more. And watch the full video as presented from London, UK with Satya Nadella, Jared Spataro, and Ryan Roslansky.

 

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.

 

New 'Activity' Column in the OneDrive 'My Files' list view

We are introducing a new Activity column in the OneDrive My Files  view. The goal of this feature is to help users stay up to date on the files that they are working on with others by surfacing relevant activity information. We will show file activity related to actions, such as, user comments, edits, share, and @mentions.

 

Granular Policies for OneDrive: Request Files

We are adding new policies to Request Files & Anyone links to better enable customers to configure sharing in their tenant to match their specific needs & scenarios. With this change, customers who have chosen to disable Anyone links for OneDrive will now be able to enable Anyone links for just the Request Files feature.

 

Select the folder where you want the files to be uploaded, and then select Request files.

This is one I've been waiting for. Microsoft IT, like other IT departments wanted to enable an easy way to request files, but without allowing too much anonymous sharing… And so, we now have a nice user/IT compromise. The scenario I’m excited about: I plan to create a link to request files that I can put in my email signature - so anytime someone has a file to share with me, they can send it to me in a safe fashion, one that arrives in my OneDrive with awareness of who and when.

 

Quick Access Teams and Sharepoint Document Libraries in Office Win32 backstage

The Quick Access feature will allow users to access shared libraries from both their SharePoint and Teams locations. When the user opens files from shared libraries, these libraries will show up in the form of a list which will encourage users to save and open files to these libraries with ease. This helps deliver a more consistent, coherent storage location experience across M365 apps.

 

Access Teams files and Sharepoint document libraries in the Office Win32 backstage.

 

Related technology

Schedule send for Teams chat

As remote teams become more common and spread across multiple time zones, we are introducing the feature that allows you to schedule chat messages to be delivered in the future. With this feature, we can help build better work-life balance and support flexible schedules by scheduling chat messages so that they only deliver during our peer’s work hours. It’s a simple right-click on the Send button and program when you wish the chat message to be sent.

 

I didn't want to bother my colleague, Sesha, after hours, so I used the delayed send feature (right-clicking on the send button) so he'd get my Teams chat the following morning.

All scheduled messages can only be delivered no more than 7 days in the future and cannot be flagged as urgent or important. Inline images and attached files will only be accessible by others in the chat once the message has been delivered. Additionally, all scheduled messages can be edited and deleted before they are delivered. 

 

Video clips in Teams chat (Preview)

Video Clips are a new way of working and connecting with coworkers using short video in Teams. Users can capture, send, and playback video messages in Chat on all Teams endpoints. Recording limited to 1 min across all platforms. It’s easy to get started, just click on the Record a video clip button to the left of the Send button.

 

Click the Record a video clip button to record and share an up-to-one-minute video clip in a Teams chat.

 

New Stream mobile app (beta) - iOS and Android?

This is a rebuilt Stream mobile app, one that gives you seamless access to Stream (Classic) and Stream (on SharePoint) videos as well as Teams meeting recordings. The app also includes a design refresh, a personalized home feed, and a rich video viewing experience.

 

Do more, stay connected and learn with videos on-the-go. The Stream mobile app (beta) gives you seamless access to your video content on Stream (Classic) and Stream (on SharePoint).

In testing, I've been catching up on Teams meeting recordings with the Stream mobile beta on my iPhone - and it works great. I see a nice list of recent meetings, click play, and walk and get caught up. With each step my knowledge grows - a video ‘fitbit for the enterprise.’

 

Get the Adobe PDF experience in Microsoft Teams

It's possible now to set Adobe Acrobat as the default app to view and edit PDF files in the Microsoft Teams. Once done, all PDF files from the chat, channel, and files app will open directly in the Acrobat app within Teams. And no need for an Adobe Acrobat subscription or an Adobe ID to view, search, comment and annotate PDF files. However, to Create, Organize, Combine, or Export a PDF, people need an Adobe Acrobat subscription.

 

Set up Adobe Acrobat as the default app for working with PDF files in Microsoft Teams.

 

Windows 11 2022 Update now available

Windows 11, version 22H2 - also referred to as the Windows 11 2022 Update - is now available for eligible Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices. This is the first major update to Windows 11, offering important new features designed to keep your organization safe in an ever-changing threat landscape without compromising the Windows experiences that help end users collaborate.

 

Enhanced Snap layouts - With the new update, we’re making Snap layouts more versatile with better touch navigation and the ability to snap multiple browser tabs in Microsoft Edge.

  • Relevant new features:
    • System wide live captions, voice access (preview), and Natural Voices for Narrator
    • Enhanced Snap layouts
    • Focus sessions and Do Not Disturb
    • Clipchamp is now an in-box app
    • Enhancements to File Explorer, including tabs, access to your favorite and recent files, and at-a-glance actions on your shared files in OneDrive
  • Learn more.

 

The Microsoft Ignite 2022 session scheduler is now open!

And, specific to areas of interest to The Intrazone audience, We published the Microsoft Ignite 2022 guide to Viva, Syntex, SharePoint, OneDrive, Lists, Stream, Project and more

Microsoft Ignite is for the ‘learn it all’ in us all. To help, the Viva, Syntex, SharePoint, OneDrive, Lists, Planner/Project, Stream, Project, Visio, and more groups are prepping speakers and content – fired up and ready to help dig in - to ignite your passion and help you shift into the high-learning gear!

 

Microsoft Ignite 2022 guide to Viva, Syntex, SharePoint, OneDrive, Lists, Stream, Project and more.

This guide blog is filled with related keynotes, breakout sessions, on-demand sessions, and more – to help you navigate this subset of content within the whole of Ignite – both digital and onsite at Seattle Convention Center. We’ll keep it up to date – before, during and after Ignite.

 

October 2022 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: Collaborate in Teams meetings with Excel Live [Roadmap ID: 96099] 
  • Teaser #2: Stream (classic) to Stream (on SharePoint) migration tool, built over migration manager platform [Roadmap ID: 93361]

 

… shhh, tell everyone.

 

Helpful, ongoing change management resources

  • 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 – September 2022. 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 questions. 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, and thanks for listening and reading.

 

Thanks for your time,

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

 

The Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop – September 2022 graphic showing some of the highlighted release features.

Updated Oct 05, 2022
Version 1.0
The Intrazone