Built & Build, May 2024.
May 2024 brought some great new offerings and insights on future ones: OneDrive file cards for Viva Connections dashboard, Updated file viewer for non-office file, Link files from SharePoint in Teams mobile, SharePoint: Advanced tenant rename, SharePoint + Stream: Video page templates, Teams + Loop workspaces in meetings, improved version history controls for SharePoint document libraries, Microsoft Graph API for SharePoint pages (GA), and more. Plus, we highlight some of the SharePoint and Teams news from Microsoft Build 2024.
Details and screenshots below, including our audible companion: The Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop: May 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 May 2024 (possibly early June 2024).
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 Viva: OneDrive File Cards on Viva Connections dashboard
This helps organizations add a view of Microsoft OneDrive files that were recently accessed, shared, or marked favorite by a person. It's an easy window into OneDrive - giving a personalized view into a file of importance, with the ability to click "View more files" like you're clicking on "see more like this" - in the flow of the Viva Connections Dashboard - where you can program a great experience for your employees - and it adheres to making it personalized and dynamic.
You can now add the OneDrive Files Card to your Viva Connections dashboard if you have the dashboard feature on. It will appear out-of-box (OOB) on the dashboard if no configuration is specified, of which you can remove it to customize your dashboard to your own preference.
- Roadmap ID 388496.
Updates to the file viewer when opening non-Office files in OneDrive and SharePoint
The enhanced file viewer for Microsoft 365 now offers a quick and easy way to view your files in OneDrive for the web and SharePoint in Microsoft 365. It's now more useful and intuitive - with a new toolbar, new panes, and collaboration features. And we support more than 300 file types.
After the rollout: The new file viewer has a dark mode background, an updated command bar, and file navigation arrows positioned in the middle of the page.
- Learn more.
- Roadmap ID 381752.
Link to files from OneDrive and SharePoint sites from within the Teams mobile app (iOS and Android)
Linking to a file when on the go must be one of my favorite time savers - to not having to crack open the full desktop to simply add a link to a file in a chat or channel. Now, In Teams for iOS and Android, you can browse, multiselect and link files from SharePoint sites within a chat or channel conversation.
You simply tap on the '+' icon to open the compose tray and then tap on the paperclip ‘Attach’ icon to link to files. Boom, what do you link about that final files-related item.
I link it's great. And it will save you time, in Teams.
- Roadmap ID 395375
SharePoint: Advanced tenant rename
For organizations that need to change their Microsoft SharePoint domain name due to rebranding, mergers, acquisitions, or consolidations, Advanced Tenant Rename is now available with SharePoint Advanced Management. With Advanced Tenant Rename, organizations with up to 100,000 total sites can change their domain name. This also offers greater control with the ability to prioritize up to 4,000 sites for early execution within the rename.
If you choose to use Advanced Tenant Rename, this will result in all SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business URLs showing the new domain name. Some workloads may need additional actions after a rename. For those not intending to perform a rename, there will be no change.
- Learn more.
- Roadmap ID 180383
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.
SharePoint + Stream: New video page templates
Get ready to create video pages and news posts directly from the Stream web app. For the first time ever, you can create a page outside of SharePoint for videos stored on a SharePoint site.
How, you ask? In the Stream web app, if you have editing access, you select the new 'Create video news post' button under the video's Share dropdown menu. Then, review the new templates and select the page template you prefer. Eh voila, you're on your way - creating a new SharePoint page or news post, with desired video(s), and the ability to add further context to include related documents and design the page to your liking before publishing it.
It's a unique way to create a page, and a natural amplification method when looking at it from amplifying the impact of a video - boosting its visibility and refining its context.
- Learn more.
- Roadmap ID 124823
Microsoft Teams: Auto-create Microsoft Loop workspaces to share meeting content
Microsoft Teams meeting organizers of recurring meetings will be prompted in the chat to create a Microsoft Loop workspace after their meetings end - which leverages your instance of SharePoint Embedded to store the new Loop workspace.
The Loop workspace helps gather shared meeting content into a central, durable Loop workspace to enable ongoing collaboration over time. As a recurring meeting series continues, additional content shared in the meeting chat will be added automatically to the initial Loop workspace. Over time, the content in the chat accrues with meeting recordings, Microsoft 365 content (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Whiteboards), Loop meeting notes, Loop pages, and other shared content. And Microsoft will support additional content types over time.
NOTE: For this initial rollout, this feature will be enabled for meeting series with 3-50 invitees. Later, we will release support for greater than 50 invitees and for Modern Groups.
- Message ID: MC792605
SharePoint document libraries: Improved Version history controls (Preview)
Version history is a critical part of SharePoint’s built-in data protection, providing visibility on how a file has evolved over time. Users can easily revert to an older version if business needs change or if files are damaged by user error or malware.
Version storage controls allow you as admins to set an appropriate level of recoverability and auditability for your organization. And, based on strong customer feedback, we will release enhanced version storage controls so you can meet your needs efficiently and at scale. We are introducing new version controls that help admins and content owners reduce storage footprint driven by low value file versions. Previously, document library owners could set count-based version limits at the library level.
New Version history limit options to meet your organization’s recovery objectives and version storage targets. Set version limits to:
- Automatically optimize version recovery and storage without estimating limits or Manually limit versions by count or version age.
- Set default organization Version history limits on new document libraries and Microsoft OneDrive accounts for consistent version storage setting on all new libraries and OneDrive accounts created through the organization.
- Set Site or Library level Version history limits to meet specific content needs by breaking inheritance from organization defaults.
- Report on version storage use of a site or library by generating a CSV report to analyze current usage trends or impact analysis.
- Delete versions from a site or library to reduce existing version storage footprint or align with new limits.
Microsoft Graph API for SharePoint pages is now generally available (GA)
We are pleased to announce the GA of the Microsoft Graph API for SharePoint pages, in all cloud instances—a significant milestone in our commitment to providing useful and flexible tools for SharePoint developers.
The new API allows developers to programmatically interact with SharePoint Pages and News posts, offering capabilities such as listing, getting, creating, editing, publishing, and deleting pages. With the v1.0 release, we are introducing a targeted scope of features based on comprehensive research, use case analysis, and product scoping. Which also means there is more to come beyond v1.
- Roadmap ID 101166.
- Learn more.
Related technology
Outlook and Teams: Respond to meetings with Follow
We are introducing a new meeting response option called Follow that allows people invited to a meeting to let the organizer know they can't attend but would like to stay informed. Follow goes beyond the traditional Accept, Tentative, and Decline responses. Follow is for busy individuals with high meeting loads and conflicting meetings. Follow is the ideal meeting response option when you can't attend a meeting but still want to stay engaged and have access to post-meeting information in Teams.
Follow responses will:
- Inform organizers: letting the meeting organizer know you can't attend but want to stay engaged and have access to post-meeting information.
- Free up time: marking the meeting on your calendar as free so you can better prioritize your time. You will still retain access to the meeting and chat.
- Stay informed: Reminding meeting organizers to record and take collaborative notes during the meeting. You will receive a notification that the recap is available after the meeting.
After rollout, invitation response options will be Yes, No, and Follow. The Maybe reply will be accessible through the three-dot menu. I know a lot of you have been follow'ing this one on the roadmap, and now it's time to follow it to fruition - aka, now. Follow a meeting in Outlook or Teams - you'll be glad you did.
- Learn more.
- Roadmap ID 154557.
Organizational messages (Preview) in the Microsoft 365 admin center
Effective communication plays a crucial role in empowering every person in your organization to achieve more. In the digital-first work environment, admins and organizational leaders need a growing variety of tools to reach the right people with the right messages through the right surfaces and at the right times.
We’re excited to announce the public preview of organizational messages in the Microsoft 365 admin center - so you can reach others in your organization through native, branded, and customized experiences right within the Microsoft products they use every day; for example, to send messages to the Windows Spotlight location. It's a great way to inform others and reach them where it's most visible.
Microsoft Build 2024 | News highlights and key resources
First, if you want a one-stop destination for all Build 2024 news, head over to the "Book of News." It has every single announcement made during the event, with an easy to navigate table of contents across the portfolio of Microsoft products.
OK, on to the SharePoint and Teams (and Surface) highlights from Build 2024 – links under title take you to the main blog published during Build:
Create custom copilots from SharePoint - aka, "Click to Copilot" – first, see it in action as Jeff Teper frames it up and demos it in the main keynote: “Microsoft Build opening keynote | KEY01” (Jeff’s segment is 01:07:00 into the video), plus the "Integrating your bots and Copilot experiences natively into SharePoint and Viva Connections" breakout session with CJ Tan and team.
SharePoint Embedded (GA): Build file and document centric apps and integrate advanced Microsoft 365 features including full featured collaborative functions from Office, Purview's security and compliance tools, and Copilot capabilities.
- Microsoft 365 Archive is now generally available and newly enhanced version controls are now in public preview) give customers a way to store or trim away inactive data as part of a proper data lifecycle management journey, keeping their data secure and relevant in the age of AI in a cost-effective manner.
- Microsoft 365 Backup (now in public preview) provides unparalleled performant recovery for their critical active data to maintain business continuity at otherwise unachievable speeds.
- Microsoft 365 Backup Storage will be in public preview soon - to give developers a way to provide the same benefits of the native Backup solution through their own integrated application.
Team Copilot expands Copilot beyond a personal assistant to act as a valuable team member—participating and contributing along with the team. And you’re always in control—assigning tasks or responsibilities to Copilot so the whole team can be more productive, collaborative, and creative, together. It’s available where you collaborate—in Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Loop, Microsoft Planner, and more.
New Teams enhancements support developer productivity and collaboration. Whether you work in GitHub, Jira, Datadog, or other development tools, Teams can help you be more productive, stay connected with your team, and even streamline product development – for example, sharing code blocks, taking actions directly from the app, and even bringing a bit of fun into the workplace.
Introducing Copilot+ PCs. A PC for the AI era: the Copilot+ PC. These business-ready devices utilize powerful new silicon with a neural processing unit (NPU) capable of more than 40 trillion operations per second. Feature highlights include Recall, Live captions for video calls, and Windows Studio Effects. You’ll see it all and more from the full Copilot+ PCs keynote:
FINAL BUILD 2024 NOTE: It's binge time, devs! There are now 282 videos on-demand for "Microsoft Build 2024" on YouTube – in one giant playlist.
May was a big month for #accessibility
There were a lot of advancements across Hardware, Developer Tools and Apps, and Mental Health -- all powered by AI. There’s a nice summary blog from our Chief Accessibility Officer, Jenny Lay-Flurrie. It includes a fascinating video about how AI-powered tools are creating new possibilities for people with disabilities. The video (embedded below) shows how the iconic Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam is making art more accessible, using AI to create rich descriptions for one million works of art, greatly improving the experience for blind and low-vision visitors.
I encourage you to follow their work - if you're still on Twitter, it's the @MSFTEnable handle + our accessibility website filled with resources.
June 2024 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 Teams: New file image previews in messages | Message Center ID: MC790792
- Teaser #2: Microsoft Lists: Add approvals to any list | Message ID: MC757613
… shhh, tell everyone.
Helpful, ongoing change management resources
- Become a member of the new Community News Desk | Discover news, events, product series, and insights around the world.
- NOW ON-DEMAND | Recorded sessions from the Microsoft 365 Community Conference.
- Microsoft Build "Book of News"
- "Microsoft Build 2024" on YouTube – including opening keynote with Satya Nadella
- "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 – May 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.
Thanks for your time,
Mark Kashman – senior product manager (SharePoint/Lists) | Microsoft)
