Microsoft 365 Blog articles

Level up your data security at Microsoft 365 Community Conference

JonJones_MSFT — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 22:18:25 GMT

Technology is evolving at a startling rate, and it’s no longer enough for an organization to maintain their security measures, they must evolve along with it. Don’t let your data, employees, or clients become another headline. Join us in Orlando on April 21–23 for the Microsoft 365 Community Conference, where you’ll learn how to safeguard your most valuable data during expert-led discussions and hands-on sessions

Chart your course forward with Microsoft’s security roadmap

Do you ever wish you had a crystal ball that could show you how the changing tech landscape is going to affect your data protection needs? We can give you the next-best thing, an inside look at where the future of work is taking security solutions and what that means for you, straight from the experts leading the way.

Register now, and you’ll be in the room as Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security and Rohan Kumar, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security unveil Microsoft’s vision for securing the new frontier of AI. They’ll discuss the ways frontier firms are protecting their data, identities, and models amid rapid AI adoption and Agents. Microsoft is helping IT and security teams adapt to AI driven work with security built in, not bolted on, gain practical guidance on how organizations are modernizing security controls, reducing data exposure, and supporting AI adoption at scale, without adding complexity for admins or end users.

And that’s not all; we have a full schedule of innovators and trailblazers scheduled throughout the program. You’ll discover exclusive insights, best practices, and strategies that will redefine your organization’s data security. Check out the speaker directory on the Microsoft 365 Community Conference homepage and then register to save your seat today.

Attend a session for every security need

We all know that securing our data is important, but it can be hard to know where to start when different sectors require different security measures. That’s why we’ve designed the sessions at Microsoft 365 Community Conference to provide attendees with both a comprehensive overview and a deep dive into specific critical topics.

• Agent 365: The control plane for all Agents with Nikita Bandyopadhyay and Sesha Mani

• Agent Lifecycle Management and Governance leveraging FastTrack with Azharullah Meer and Pratik Bhusal

• Copilot readiness & resiliency with M365 Backup & Archive with Sree Lakshmi and Aditi Gangwar

• Copilot Studio Governance for Public Sector with Richie Wallace and William McLendon

• Deep dive into Agent insights and content governance across SharePoint and Microsoft 365 with Nikita Bandyopadhyay

• Extending Microsoft Purview with APIs & SDK: Governance-by-Design for AI Apps and Agents with Martin Gagne

• How Microsoft Digital adopted Baseline Security Mode to improve Microsoft's security posture with Adriana Wood

• How Microsoft Does IT: Managing and governing Agents - empower with risk aligned oversight with David Johnson, Naveen Jangir, and Mike Powers

• How Microsoft Does IT: Microsoft 365 Governance in the age of Copilot & agents with David Johnson

• Microsoft Baseline Security Mode: Simplify, secure, succeed with Adriana Wood and Sesha Mani

• Microsoft Purview: AI-Powered Data Security for Microsoft 365 with Aashish Ramdas

• Mission Readiness - Cybersecurity and Copilot in the Public Sector with Karuana Gatimu

• Protect and govern agents with Microsoft Purview with Shilpa Ranganathan

• Protect your data from oversharing to AI with Microsoft Purview with Roberto Yglesias

• Public Sector Roadmap Review with Karuana Gatimu and Tuwanda Perez

• Securing AI with Microsoft Purview: From Visibility to Action with Shilpa Ranganathan

• Tracing the Truth: Accelerate Insider Risk Investigations with Microsoft Purview with Rod Trent

• What's new in Security & Compliance for SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams with Sanjoyan Mustafi, Vithalprasad Gaitonde

No matter your security needs, we have a can’t-miss session waiting for you at Microsoft 365 Community Conference. Explore all Security, Compliance, and Governance sessions here.

You can’t halt the march of progress, but by attending the Microsoft 365 Community Conference, you can make sure you're in a position to take advantage of it. Register now, and we’ll see you April 21–23 in Orlando.

Sign with a personal touch with eSignature for Microsoft 365

MichaelHolste — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 17:24:01 GMT

We’ve heard your feedback: you want more personal and natural signing experiences with eSignature for Microsoft 365.

Now you can draw your signature directly on PDF files using a stylus, touch, or mouse. No more printing, signing, and scanning; no more settling for typed signatures. Whether you’re approving an official company policy or signing a sales contract, you can now add your familiar distinctive touch with your drawn signature.

Screenshot showing a drawn signature in the Draw tab of the eSignature for Microsoft 365 interface

How it works

Using the drawn signature feature is straightforward and feels much like signing a piece of paper. When you receive a signing request from eSignature for Microsoft 365:

Open the PDF as usual. When you start to sign, you’ll notice a new “Draw” tab on the signature panel.
In the “Draw” tab, write your signature in the drawing field with a stylus, touch, or mouse. You can pick different pen colors to customize your signature look.
Made a mistake? Simply hit the “Clear” button to erase your current drawing and try again. You have unlimited tries until you’re happy with your signature.
When you’re done drawing, click Done. Your signature will be placed into the PDF.
Fill in any remaining signature fields and select ‘Submit’ to complete the signing process.

The result is a secure PDF that includes your drawn signature. If multiple people need to sign, each signer can choose their own method – type or draw – when it’s their turn.

Good to know: If you have more than one signature field assigned to you in a PDF, filling out the first one will automatically allow you to reuse that signature for the remaining fields, so you don’t have to draw it repeatedly.

How to get started

We’re excited for you to try drawn signatures and experience a more personal, authentic way of signing documents in Microsoft 365.

Starting this week, the drawn signatures capability will be available worldwide on the Microsoft 365 public cloud (excluding Indonesia), with rollout expected to be completed by mid-May. It’ll be enabled by default for all customers using eSignature for Microsoft 365. There is no need for admins to act. When the feature reaches your tenant, users will automatically see the new “Draw” option when signing PDFs.

If you’re an admin or interested user, make sure eSignature is enabled in your tenant. It’s found under Pay-as-you-go services in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. You can also learn more about eSignature configuration and usage. Now, through June 2026, you can try out a limited amount of eSignature by sending up to five requests per month at no cost if you have pay-as-you-go billing enabled.

Where Microsoft MVP Impact Meets Innovation: Microsoft 365 Community Conference 2026

JonJones_MSFT — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 18:38:33 GMT

Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) are the heartbeat of the Microsoft ecosystem—and at Microsoft 365 Community Conference 2026, your impact takes center stage.

Imagine connecting face-to-face with the engineers behind the products you use every day. Picture conversations with Microsoft leaders shaping the future of collaboration and AI. Now add in deep, practical insight from the world’s most respected Microsoft practitioners—your fellow MVPs.

Join us April 21–23 in Orlando, Florida for the Microsoft 365 Community Conference, where innovation, community, and real-world expertise come together.

👉 Exclusive MVP registration perk:

Use discount code MVPS to save $200 on your conference pass. This code is reserved exclusively for Microsoft MVPs.

MVPs: The People Attendees Come to Learn From—and Hang Out With

Microsoft MVPs play a central role in shaping the conference experience. As trusted experts and recognized leaders in the community, MVPs bring hands on, scenario driven guidance directly to the stage—sharing what works in the real world of Microsoft 365.

Throughout the event, MVPs are also the people attendees are most excited to meet, learn from, and spend time with—especially in the Microsoft Innovation Hub, where conversations go deeper, demos get hands on, and ideas turn into action.

Whether you’re speaking, hosting conversations, or simply connecting between sessions, MVPs are the voices attendees seek out.

Learn From the Leaders Defining What’s Next

Kick off the event with an innovative keynote experience featuring some of the brightest minds at Microsoft, including:

Jeff Teper, President, Microsoft 365 Collaborative Apps and Platforms
Charles Lamanna, President, Business Apps & Agents
Rohan Kumar, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security, Purview & Trust
Vasu Jakkal, Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security Business

Together with MVPs and community leaders, these sessions explore how organizations can move forward with confidence in an AI powered world.

Connect, Celebrate, and Be Part of the Community

In addition to sessions and keynotes, MVPs are invited to moments designed to bring the community together:

Unwind with great food, drinks, and conversation in the expo hall receptions, then continue the celebration at the attendee party—complete with rides inside Universal Orlando.
Pick up MVP event swag and take home something memorable.
And of course, take part in the annual Microsoft MVP photo, a tradition that celebrates the people who make this community exceptional.

Build the Skills for the AI Era

Develop the skills needed to thrive as a Frontier Firm through sessions led by innovators, builders, designers, Microsoft product teams, and MVPs shaping collaboration today.

Highlights include:

A fireside chat with Karuana Gatimu, Director, Customer Advocacy for AI & Collaboration, on how AI can elevate leadership.
A deep look at how Teams is driving engagement across global communities with Murali Sitaram, Corporate Vice President, Viva Engage.
The premiere of More Than Code, a short film celebrating SharePoint’s 25th birthday.

These are just a few of the experiences planned, with more being added all the time. Explore the full session catalog to see where MVPs are speaking, connecting, and leading conversations across the conference—including in the Innovation Hub.

We hope you’ll join us in Orlando to celebrate the community, share your expertise, and shape what’s next—together.

👉 Visit the Microsoft 365 Community Conference website to explore the full schedule and register using code MVPS to save $200.

Sensitivity Labels in OneNote Now Generally Available

Daniel Beade — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 17:00:00 GMT

We’re excited to announce that sensitivity labels in OneNote have reached General Availability (GA)! This milestone marks a significant step forward in helping organizations protect sensitive information while enabling seamless collaboration across Microsoft 365.

Why This Matters

Sensitivity labels help organizations control how sensitive data is handled where work happens, including OneNote.

Enterprise customers have consistently asked for better ways to safeguard sensitive information in OneNote. With support for sensitivity labels, OneNote now works with Microsoft Purview so that when a section is labeled, the controls defined by your organization’s policies, such as encryption and access restrictions, are applied to help handle sensitive content in line with compliance requirements.

With sensitivity labels now available in OneNote, organizations can

Applying encryption at the section level.
Meet compliance requirements without disrupting productivity.
Enable secure collaboration across devices and platforms.

This capability has been one of the most requested by enterprise customers, and it’s designed to help you strengthen your data governance controls while supporting your teams as they work.

From a Copilot perspective, the security foundation is already in place since Copilot only accesses content users are permitted to see. With Sensitivity Labels now available in OneNote, we add an additional layer of control by allowing organizations to classify and protect their most sensitive notes. This helps keep AI‑powered assistance compliant with your organization’s security and privacy standards while enabling teams to work confidently with protected notes.

What’s Included in GA

Manual Labeling: Apply sensitivity labels at the section level in OneNote across Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and Web.
Consistent Experience: Familiar labeling experience aligned with other Microsoft 365 apps.
Integration with Microsoft Purview: OneNote enforces the file‑based sensitivity labels defined by your organization, and applies the corresponding encryption settings.

Visuals: How It Looks

Here are examples of the new labeling experience in OneNote:

Windows Client:

Web Client:

Mac:

iOS:

Android:

Getting Started

OneNote uses the same sensitivity labels configured for files. However, the labeling capability in OneNote is not enabled by default and must be enabled manually by the IT administrator. For detailed guidance, please refer to ‘Enable sensitivity labels for files in SharePoint and OneDrive’ and to ‘Microsoft Purview sensitivity labels in OneNote’.

What’s Next

We will keep evolving the labeling experience to bring even more value to organizations. Stay tuned for updates as we continue to refine and expand our capabilities.

Departmental billing for Microsoft 365 Backup is now available!

sreelakshmi — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 15:30:00 GMT

As organizations continue to scale Microsoft 365, protecting data has become a technical and operational requirement. Microsoft 365 Backup delivers fast, native recovery for SharePoint, OneDrive, and Exchange—helping organizations respond quickly to accidental deletion, ransomware, and other disruptive events.

Today, we’re excited to announce the general availability of departmental billing for Microsoft 365 Backup, a new admin capability designed to give organizations precise control over how backup protection is managed, administered, and billed across the business.

Granular control over Microsoft 365 Backup

As adoption grows, many customers have told us they need a better way to:

Align backup costs to the teams that generate them
Delegate backup management without giving up central control
Support chargeback models across departments, regions, or business units

Departmental billing directly addresses these needs by introducing granular scoping, role-based access, and flexible pay-as-you-go billing—all within Microsoft 365 Backup.

Configure backup by department or scope

Admins can now define backup policies for specific scopes, such as individual departments, geographic regions, subsidiaries, or teams. This ensures the right data is protected—without forcing a one-size-fits-all approach across the entire tenant.

Select billing policies to use with Microsoft 365 Backup

Assign role-based administration

Using Role-Based Access Control (RBAC), organizations can assign department-specific backup administrators. These admins can manage protection and recovery for their scoped areas, while central IT retains overall governance and visibility.

Manage charges across Azure subscriptions

Departmental billing enables pay-as-you-go billing across multiple Azure subscriptions, making it easier to map backup costs to the right cost centers.

Resilience where it’s needed most

Different parts of the organization have different risk profiles. Departmental billing allows teams to deliver backup protection that aligns to business criticality by allowing organization specific backup and cost management —without overprovisioning or unnecessary spend.

Real-world scenarios

Departmental billing unlocks a variety of use cases, including:

Enterprises with multiple business units that prefer autonomous management of backup and costs
Global organizations that need regional teams to manage their own protection policies
IT leaders looking to scale Microsoft 365 Backup responsibly with financial transparency and budget controls for specific departments

Additional news for Microsoft 365 Backup

We’re continuing to invest in Microsoft 365 Backup to make protection and recovery simpler, faster, and more accessible. The newest addition to Microsoft 365 Backup’s feature lineup is its general availability for Government Cloud Customers (GCC). Other upcoming features include file-level restore and a streamlined billing experience, making robust data protection and recovery more accessible to public sector organizations.

See a full breakdown of what’s new and stay tuned as we look ahead to the public preview of file-level archive.

Resiliency in the era of AI

As enterprises accelerate AI adoption, one question continues to come up at the executive level: If something disrupts your organization's data, how quickly can you recover? Learn how Microsoft 365 can help provide resiliency for the content that powers your organization’s AI initiatives.

Get started

If you’re already using Microsoft 365 Backup, you can begin configuring scoped backups and billing models today. If you’re evaluating backup solutions, this capability makes it easier than ever to align resilience with real-world organizational structures.

To learn more:

Explore Microsoft 365 Backup: https://aka.ms/M365Backup
Learn how Microsoft approaches data resilience and governance across Microsoft 365. Learn how to set up Microsoft 365 Backup: https://aka.ms/M365Backup/Setup
Watch our on-demand webinar to learn more about how Microsoft 365 Backup helps provide resiliency in the age of AI: https://aka.ms/M365Backup/Webinar/202603

What to Expect from the Copilot & AI Sessions at Microsoft 365 Community Conference

JonJones_MSFT — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 19:28:29 GMT

AI isn’t a side conversation at the Microsoft 365 Community Conference—it’s at the center of how work is changing. The Copilot, Agents, & Copilot Services Sessions are designed for anyone who wants to move beyond curiosity and into real-world application. This is an opportunity to learn how Copilot works today and how agents extend it. You will also explore how organizations can govern, scale, and operationalize AI across Microsoft 365.

Questions these sessions will help answer:

How do we move from experimentation to real value?
How do we scale AI responsibly?
How do agents fit into the way we already work?
What skills do teams need next?

Business leaders, IT pros, developers, and community practitioners will join sessions to find practical insights into how AI shows up in your daily work, and what it takes to deploy it responsibly and effectively. There will also be a focus on change management, champion programs, and adoption frameworks, because deploying AI isn’t just a technical decision, it’s a cultural one.

From Copilot to Agents: The Shift from Assistance to Action

One of the biggest themes across the sessions are the evolution from AI as a helper to AI as an active participant in work. If you’re curious about what “agentic AI” actually means in practice, attending these sessions will make it concrete.

Join your peers as you learn how Microsoft 365 Copilot is being extended through agents that reason, act, and automate. Learn about agent orchestration across tools like Copilot Studio, SharePoint, Teams, Planner, and Power Platform. Discover new agent patterns including declarative agents, multi-agent configurations, workflows agents, and computer-use agents.

In these sessions you’ll explore how agents can:

Take action on your behalf and do more than suggest content.
Work across apps, data sources, and workflows.
Participate alongside humans as part of the team.

Real Adoption Stories (Not Just Demos)!

Go beyond feature walkthroughs to focus on how organizations are actually adopting Copilot and agents at scale. In these adoption stories you’ll hear:

How Microsoft uses Copilot and agents internally as Customer Zero.
What adoption looks like across large enterprises, frontline environments, and regulated industries.
Lessons learned from early adopters—what worked, what didn’t, and what they’d do differently.

Governance, Trust, and Control Are Front and Center

AI adoption only works when people trust it—and trust is built through strong governance. Learn how organizations are balancing innovation with oversight and enabling teams to build and use agents while maintaining enterprise-grade guardrails. A significant portion of the Copilot & AI track is dedicated to:

Agent lifecycle management.
Security, compliance, and data protection.
Preventing oversharing and managing risk.
Observability and control using tools like Agent 365, Microsoft Purview, and Copilot Control System.

This is especially valuable for IT and security leaders who are being asked to “move fast” without compromising standards.

Building with Copilot: No-Code, Low-Code, and Pro-Code Paths

No matter where you sit on the technical spectrum, there’s a clear path to learning how to build responsibly and effectively. Not everyone builds the same way and organizations need prompt engineering that delivers results. In these sessions you’ll learn how to choose the right agent type for the job, extending Copilot with enterprise data, and designing agents that are production ready—not just impressive in demos.

These sessions are tailored to:

Business users and makers getting started with Copilot Studio
Low-code developers extending Copilot with workflows, connectors, and prompts
Pro developers building advanced agents using APIs, MCP servers, Microsoft Graph, SharePoint Embedded, and Azure AI

Copilot in the Flow of Everyday Work

Rather than abstract AI concepts, you’ll see end-to-end workflows that demonstrate how Copilot helps people save time, reduce manual work, and focus on higher-value outcomes. The emphasis in these sessions is on practical impact, not hype showing how AI is grounded in real work.

These sessions will showcase Copilot and agents embedded into:

Meetings, chats, and channels.
Task and project management.
Content creation and knowledge management.
Business processes and frontline operations.

Why the Copilot and AI track matters

If AI is part of your roadmap, or already part of your day, this track will show you how strategy can meet execution. Join us to explore clear mental models for Copilots and agents, see real examples you can apply to your work, and gain a better understanding of what’s now—and what’s coming next.

Each year, #M365Con26 is built around one simple idea: bringing our global community together to learn, grow, innovate, and get hands-on with the technologies shaping the next era of work.

This year’s conference delivers our most expansive program yet, including:

200+ sessions, workshops, and AMAs, covering Microsoft 365 Copilot, Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, Copilot Studio, and more.
100+ Microsoft-led sessions, giving you unprecedented access to the people building the apps and AI capabilities you use every day.
A keynote lineup featuring Microsoft leaders including Jeff Teper, Charles Lamanna, Vasu Jakkal, Rohan Kumar, Jaime Teevan, and many more.
Deep-dive workshops to elevate your skills with real-world scenarios and hands-on learning.
Exclusive attendee parties and networking events where you can connect with peers and icons.

You’ll also get the chance to meet hundreds of Microsoft executives, engineers, and product leaders—ask questions, share feedback, and help shape the roadmap of the technologies you rely on.

Register now, save $150 with code SAVE150 - https://aka.ms/M365ConRegister

Announcing the 2026 Microsoft 365 Community Conference Keynotes

HeatherCook — Sat, 21 Feb 2026 00:23:35 GMT

The Microsoft 365 Community Conference returns to Orlando this April, bringing together thousands of builders, innovators, creators, communicators, admins, architects, MVPs, and product makers for three unforgettable days of learning and community.

This year’s theme, “A Beacon for Builders, Innovators & Icons of Intelligent Work,” celebrates the people shaping the AI‑powered future — and the keynote lineup reflects exactly that. These leaders will set the tone for our biggest, boldest M365 Community Conference.

Below is your first look at the official 2026 keynote order and what to expect from each session.

Opening Keynote

Jeff Teper — President, Microsoft 365 Collaborative Apps & Platforms

Building for the future: Microsoft 365, Agents and AI, what's new and what's next

Join Jeff Teper, to discover how AI-powered innovation across Copilot, Teams, and SharePoint is reshaping how people communicate, create, and work together. This session highlights what’s new, what’s fundamentally different, and why thoughtful design continues to matter. See the latest advances in AI and agents, gain insight into where collaboration is headed, and learn why Microsoft is the company to continue to bet on when it comes to building what’s next.

Expect:

New breakthroughs in collaboration powered by AI and agents
Fresh innovations across Teams, Copilot, and SharePoint
Practical guidance on how design continues to shape effective teamwork
Real world demos that show how AI is transforming communication and content
Insight into what is new, what is changing, and what is coming next

Business Apps & Agents Keynote

Charles Lamanna — President, Business Apps & Agents

In this keynote, Charles Lamanna will share how Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Apps, and Agent 365 come together to help makers build powerful agents and help IT teams deploy and govern them at scale. We’ll share how organizations can design, extend, and govern a new model for the intelligent workplace – connecting data, workflows, and systems into intelligent agents that move work forward.

Copilot, apps, and agents: the next platform shift for Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 Copilot has changed how we interact with software. Now AI agents are changing how work gets done – moving from responding to prompts to taking action, across the tools and data your organization already relies on.

Expect:

A clear explanation of how to leverage and build with Copilot and agents
How agents access data, use tools, and complete multi-step work
A deeper look at the latest capabilities across Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, and Power Apps
End-to-end demos of agents in action

Security, Trust & Responsible AI Keynote

Vasu Jakkal — Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security & Rohan Kumar — Corporate Vice President, Microsoft Security, Purview & Trust

In our third keynote, Vasu Jakkal and Rohan Kumar join forces to address one of the most urgent topics of the AI era: trust and security at scale. As organizations accelerate into AI‑powered work, safeguarding identities, data, compliance, and governance is mission‑critical.

Securing AI: Building Trust in the Era of AI

Join Vasu Jakkal and Rohan Kumar as they unveil Microsoft’s vision for securing the new frontier of AI—showing how frontier firms are protecting their data, identities, and models amid rapid AI adoption. This session highlights how Microsoft is embedding security and governance into every layer of our AI platforms and unifying Purview, Defender, Entra, and Security Copilot to defend against threats like prompt injection, model tampering, and shadow AI. You’ll see how built-in protections across Microsoft 365 enable responsible, compliant AI innovation, and gain practical guidance to strengthen your own security posture as AI transforms the way everyone works.

Expect:

Microsoft's unified approach to secure AI transformation
Forward‑looking insights across Security, Purview & Trust
Guidance for building safe, responsible AI environments
How to protect innovation without slowing momentum

Future of Work Fireside Keynote

Dr. Jaime Teevan — Chief Scientist & Technical Fellow, Microsoft

Dr. Jaime Teevan, one of the foremost thought leaders on AI, productivity, and how work is evolving. In this intimate fireside‑style session, she’ll share research, real‑world insights, and Microsoft’s learnings from being both the maker and the first customer of the AI‑powered workplace.

Expect:

Insights from decades of workplace research
The human side of AI transformation
Practical guidance for leaders, creators, and practitioners
Why collaboration is essential to unlock the true potential of AI.

Community Closer Keynote

Karuana Gatimu - Director, Microsoft Customer Advocacy Group & Heather Cook - Principal PM, MIcrosoft Customer Advocacy Group

From Momentum to Movement: Where Community Goes Next

As the final moments of Microsoft 365 Community Conference come to a close, Heather Cook and Karuana Gatimu invite the community to pause, reflect, and look forward together. This Community Closer keynote connects the breakthroughs, conversations, and shared experiences of the week into a bigger story—one about people, purpose, and progress.

Together, they’ll explore how community transforms technology into impact, how advocates and builders shape what’s next across Microsoft 365, and why this moment matters more than ever. More than a recap, this session is a call to action—challenging attendees to take the energy of the conference back to their teams, regions, and communities, and turn inspiration into sustained momentum.

You’ll leave not just with ideas, but with clarity, confidence, and a renewed sense of belonging—because community doesn’t end when the conference does. It’s where the real work begins.

More Than Keynotes: Why You’ll Want to Be in Orlando

The M365 Community Conference brings together:

200+ sessions and breakouts
21 hands‑on workshops
200+ Microsoft engineers and product leaders onsite
The Microsoft Innovation Hub
Ask the Experts, Meet & Greets, and Community Studio
Women in Tech & Allies Luncheon
SharePoint’s 25th Anniversary Celebration
And an epic attendee party at Universal’s Islands of Adventure

Whether you create, deploy, secure, govern, design, or lead with Microsoft 365 — this is your community, and this is your moment.

Join Us for the Microsoft 365 Community Conference

April 21–23, 2026
Loews Sapphire Falls & Loews Royal Pacific
👉 Register now: https://aka.ms/M365Con26

Use the SAVE150 code for $150USD off current pricing

Come be part of the global community building the future of intelligent work.

Kantar reduces storage costs with Microsoft 365 Archive

MichaelHolste — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 16:00:28 GMT

Kantar, a global leader in marketing data and analytics, is embracing Gen AI to save time, improve quality, and deliver better results to both employees and customers. After moving content to Microsoft 365 and rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot, Kantar faced increasing storage costs. By adopting Microsoft 365 Archive, Kantar has successfully reduced storage costs and improved data quality. Kantar also helped ensure Copilot could access clean, relevant information while keeping inactive data secure and cost-effective.

Transforming data management

With more than 30,000 employees across 90 countries, Kantar is one of the world’s leading marketing data and analytics companies. They specialize in a range of disciplines, including brand guidance, strategy, social media monitoring, advertising effectiveness, consumer and shopper behavior, design strategy, and public opinion. The success of Kantar’s solutions relies heavily on adopting and leveraging leading technology – particularly AI.

As part of their companywide initiative to embrace Gen AI, Kantar began rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot across the organization – helping employees save time, improve their quality of work, and deliver better results for their customers.

But properly adopting Copilot requires more than meets the eye. To help ensure accuracy in the content that Copilot produces, Kantar needed to equip Copilot with accurate data – which meant tidying up the data estate. To do so, Kantar began shutting down local file shares, network drives, and other non-strategic and duplicative storage solutions, and moving people to Microsoft 365 – enabling Copilot to ingest content and centralize key materials onto a single, secure platform. However, moving these files to Microsoft 365 increased storage costs – and also runs the risk of polluting Copilot and agent behaviors with outdated, cold, and/or stale data. Adopting Microsoft 365 Archive became the next essential step in Kantar’s Copilot and Microsoft 365 journey.

“Rolling out Copilot across our client service teams wasn’t just about enabling AI, it was about preparing the ground for it. We quickly realised that for Copilot to deliver meaningful insights and support collaboration, it needed clean, centralised, and relevant data. That meant rethinking our entire data estate, retiring legacy storage, and making tough decisions about what to keep, archive, or let go. It’s a challenge that forced us to align technology with trust, and strategy with scale.”
- Marilize Sage, Collaboration SME, Client & Colleague Experience

Lowering storage costs with Microsoft 365 Archive

Microsoft 365 Archive provides a cold data storage tier that enables Kantar to keep inactive or aging data within SharePoint at a lower price compared to standard SharePoint storage. As a result, this data retains Microsoft 365’s valuable security, compliance, search, and rich metadata capabilities at a cost-effective price point – all while helping ensure that Copilot is leveraging the newest and most accurate company information.

Using their own fully automated process, Kantar began using Microsoft 365 Archive to archive SharePoint sites and Microsoft Teams* connected to SharePoint. Every month, Kantar identifies sites that have been inactive for more than 6 months and sends automated emails to site owners informing them of their eligibility for archival. If the site owners don’t take action or they choose to ignore the emails, the sites are automatically archived. Of course, site owners can choose to keep a site live, even if the data is inactive. Kantar is also following this process for the deletion of archived sites.

“The rapid growth in occupied storage across the tenant created an urgent need to launch our site lifecycle management policy as quickly as possible. Adopting an agile approach, we introduced a minimum viable policy (MVP), which we iteratively improved over the following months—enhancing automation and refining communications.”
- Davide Ranchetti – Principal Engineering Manager, Digital Workspace

Realizing value at scale

Along the way Kantar learned that it’s important to deal with scale at a global organization. In addition, they’ve found it best to have an aggressive process with an opt-out approach.

To date, Kantar has archived more than 40,000 sites – nearly 100 terabytes of data, significantly cleaning their data estate and reducing storage costs.

“Microsoft 365 Archive helps us not only address storage costs, but also provide our end users the most up-to-date, relevant content across SharePoint, Teams, Copilot and Gen AI agents.”
- Davide Ranchetti – Principal Engineering Manager, Digital Workspace

“Feedback from end-users has been largely positive, with fewer than 1% of archived sites requiring reactivation.”
- Davide Ranchetti – Principal Engineering Manager, Digital Workspace

Looking ahead

Kantar is looking forward to using file-level archiving, when it becomes available in 2026. As a data and media company, they see a huge opportunity to save on storage costs when they can archive large, inactive video files.

“We have ambitious plans for 2026. Currently, we’re piloting file-level archival through a private preview, with the goal of rolling it out to all site owners next year. This will empower individuals to archive large or unused content, especially videos, more effectively.

Additionally, we aim to transition away from our custom-built process and adopt SharePoint Advanced Management to identify inactive sites and prompt site owners to archive them.”
- Davide Ranchetti – Principal Engineering Manager, Digital Workspace

This document is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

*Microsoft Teams license required.

Manage and reduce storage growth in Microsoft 365 with Orchestry

Trent Green — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 19:25:54 GMT

Storage overages in Microsoft 365 rarely come from a single misstep or event —they build up quietly over time —version history accumulating in active libraries, inactive content lingering long after projects end, and legacy sites that were migrated as-is and never revisited. Because the growth is gradual, many organizations only notice the issue when a storage alert appears in the admin center.

Microsoft 365 now offers more ways to manage where content lives and new ways to manage the costs of retaining that content. Many IT teams still need a simple framework to see where savings can come from, plus a practical way to apply it across many sites – all without turning storage cleanup into a recurring fire drill. That’s where Microsoft capabilities, paired with governance and lifecycle tools like Orchestry, can help.

What Microsoft offers today

Microsoft 365 provides two primary ways to reduce storage consumption without deleting content.

Site-level archive (available now)
Admins can use Microsoft 365 Archive to move entire SharePoint sites from primary storage into a lower-cost, long-term, cold storage tier where content remains intact and restorable. Microsoft 365 Archive helps organizations maintain Microsoft 365-compliant security and retention policies, including sensitivity labels and data loss prevention. This is ideal for completed projects, old content or retired work or employee information that must be retained.

File-level archive (coming soon in 2026)
Microsoft 365 Archive will soon support archiving individual files, in addition to whole sites. This is especially useful for large, mixed-activity sites where only parts of the content are inactive.

Both options preserve important content while lowering ongoing storage costs. Early reporting for archived material is available through admin tools such as PowerShell, with more insight expected to expand as Microsoft 365 Archive matures.

In practice, many organizations pair these native capabilities with tooling that helps apply policies consistently, route decisions to owners, and reduce manual effort.

The three levers that reliably reduce storage

In many tenants, storage reduction comes from three repeatable actions:

Set sensible version limits

Versioning is important, but defaults can create silent growth. SharePoint libraries can hold up to 50,000 versions of a file. For large, frequently edited documents, especially PowerPoint decks, that can mean thousands of near-duplicate versions consuming huge amounts of storage.

Clean up existing version history

Many organizations have years of accumulated versions across their libraries. Removing older, unnecessary versions often frees a significant amount of space without touching the current file. This is one of the most effective ways to reduce storage quickly, especially in high-churn areas where large files get updated frequently. Large-scale version cleanup helps organizations better manage content recovery and meet differing regulatory and business requirements.

Archive inactive content

When sites or files are no longer active, moving them into Microsoft 365 Archive places them on a lower-cost tier while keeping them preserved and restorable. Site-level archiving works well for completed workspaces. File-level archiving, once available, will make it easier to handle large, mixed-activity environments.

Many organizations benefit from combining archiving with version management so they aren’t simply moving unnecessary version history into a cheaper tier.

Putting it into practice: a simple starting plan

You don’t need a major project to start reducing storage. Most organizations see results by focusing on a few high-impact moves:

Check your current position
Review storage usage and any overage in the Microsoft 365 admin center. This sets the baseline for measuring improvement.
Lower version limits where it matters most
Start with libraries that hold large, frequently updated files, such as presentations, training materials, or media assets.
Trim old versions on a few large sites
Use targeted clean-up on long-running project or department sites with years of history. Trimming versions on even a small number of sites can release noticeable capacity.
Archive clearly inactive workspaces
Move completed project sites and retired department spaces into Microsoft 365 Archive so they remain available without consuming higher-cost storage.

If you want to make these steps repeatable at scale, governance and lifecycle platforms can help.

What organizations gain by getting ahead of storage

A more intentional approach to storage pays off quickly. Reducing hot storage usage helps lower or eliminate overage fees, and moving inactive content into Microsoft 365 Archive creates a more predictable long-term growth pattern. Cleaning up old versions and inactive areas also reduces operational risk by shrinking the pool of unmanaged or outdated content.

These improvements strengthen your environment for AI as well. Less version-noise and ROT in active libraries means cleaner signals for tools like Copilot and search, while archived content sits outside the active dataset users rely on day-to-day.

Together, these steps help organizations keep costs predictable, reduce clutter, and maintain a more reliable foundation as Microsoft 365 continues to evolve. Orchestry helps keep storage management proactive by combining version standards, controlled cleanup, and owner-driven archiving into one ongoing process.

About Orchestry

Orchestry builds on Microsoft 365 to provide an experience that’s intuitive, actionable, and easy for both IT admins and end users so you can run a more secure environment, keep costs under control, and roll out AI with confidence.

Screenshot of the "Select an archival method" dialogue in the Orchestry platform

Tools like Orchestry build on Microsoft 365 Archive and native versioning controls to standardize version limits, automate version cleanup, and surface inactive sites in a predictable and governed way. By addressing configuration drift, removing reliance on opaque or script driven processes, and operationalizing cleanup at scale, Orchestry ensures storage decisions are consistent, auditable, and aligned with customer intent. This allows archive and cleanup decisions to be routed to the right stakeholders, turning storage optimization into a continuous, manageable process rather than a one-time project.

Driving Trust Through Certification: New TAC Feature Updates for IT Admins

Krishna_Mawani — Wed, 14 Jan 2026 18:29:12 GMT

Managing app security and compliance in Microsoft Teams just got easier! With recent updates in Teams Admin Center (TAC), IT admins can now quickly identify trusted apps and enforce organizational standards with confidence. These enhancements not only simplify governance but also underscore the value of Microsoft 365 Certification as a key trust driver.

What Existed in TAC?

Before the recent trust‑based enhancements, Teams Admin Center already provided foundational visibility into app trust through the Security & compliance tab in the app details experience. This surfaced key signals such as publisher information, permission scopes, data access, and links to security and compliance documentation, helping admins perform due diligence during app reviews. While these signals required manual review and cross‑checking, they established an important baseline for evaluating risk and compliance, reinforcing the role of TAC as the central place for governing apps in Microsoft Teams.

What’s New in TAC?

Trust Visibility Enhancements
- The new “Apps to Consider Allowing” tile highlights certified apps, publisher-attested apps, and those providing compliance evidence. This feature enables IT admins to quickly filter and identify apps that meet organizational standards.
Security & Compliance Column and filters
- Amins can now view compliance attributes—such as SOC 2, FedRAMP, and penetration testing—directly in TAC. This helps admins speed up app reviews with trust-based filters and make informed choices without leaving the dashboard.
- Trust-based filters enable IT Administrators using Teams admin center to view and easily filter apps and agents by specific industry standards, certifications and compliance attributes such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA, GDPR, and more. This will help to streamline app evaluation workflows, enabling broader access to trusted apps across the organization.
Dedicated Collections
- Curated lists of certified apps and agents for easier discovery.
- Saves time by grouping trusted solutions in one place.

Why It Matters

For IT Admins: Streamlined governance, reduced risk, and faster compliance checks.
For ISVs: Certification boosts visibility and credibility, helping apps stand out in a competitive marketplace.

Call to Action

Get certified to boost visibility and trust.
Learn more about Microsoft 365 Certification →

Register now for the Microsoft 365 Archive + Preservica Webinar

MichaelHolste — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 03:06:22 GMT

Register now for the Microsoft 365 Archive + Preservica Webinar
January 28, 10:00 AM PT / 6:00 PM GMT

Join us for this free webinar on January 28th, 2026 featuring Microsoft 365 Archive and Preservica’s new embedded integration that helps make data secure, usable, and accessible. This live session will showcase the integration in action—including a full demo, real customer scenarios, and guidance from both Microsoft and Preservica experts.

Register now for the January 28 Webinar [preservica.com]

Future‑proof your high‑value content

Learn how to archive SharePoint sites using Microsoft 365 Archive and keep them instantly readable through Preservica’s Active Digital Preservation—ensuring content in an array of critical formats can remain accessible for decades.
You’ll see exactly how the new integration keeps long‑term files both secure and usable, even as technology changes.

Hear directly from the Microsoft 365 Archive product team

Members of the Microsoft engineering and PMM team will join the session to walk through:

How the integration works
What’s coming next for Microsoft 365 Archive
How it aligns with broader storage, lifecycle, and AI readiness initiatives
Upcoming preview capabilities—including file‑level archive and new storage controls referenced in recent community calls

Archiving is more important than ever

As data and storage demands continue to rise, this is a key moment to begin planning your content lifecycle strategy and start optimizing for costs and AI readiness. . Microsoft has several significant Archive enhancements planned for early 2026, including file-level archive and departmental billing— and this is a chance to hear what’s coming and plan your next steps.

Don’t Miss It—Register Today

Whether you manage records, compliance, IT governance, digital preservation, or simply want to optimize Microsoft 365 storage while preparing for an AI‑powered future, this is a must‑attend event.

Register now

We look forward to seeing you there—and to sharing more Microsoft 365 Archive news as we kick off an exciting year ahead.

Public Preview: Cross-tenant Orchestrated User Data Migration

Rebecca_W_Wood — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 17:43:47 GMT

What’s new

Today we’re excited to announce the Public Preview of Cross-tenant Orchestrated User Data Migration (UDM), a new set of capabilities that help IT teams move user mailboxes, files, and collaboration assets between Microsoft 365 tenants with greater speed, predictability, and control.

Whether you’re consolidating after a merger, divesting a business unit, or reorganizing globally, this Public Preview brings a guided, endtoend migration experience that reduces manual steps and helps keep users productive during the transition.

Migrate more data in a single product

With a single orchestration layer coordinating the migration of multiple services, admins won’t need to manage timelines, dependencies, or interfaces of multiple tools. The submission and monitoring of a migration is all available in one spot, and batching of up to 2,000 users is supported.

All data stays within the Microsoft boundary – so migration is fast and secure.

Embedded in this tool is Identity Mapping for users. This feature allows admins to map users 1:1 from source to target and eliminates the need to manually edit target users with the required properties from the source user.

UDM includes the migration of a user’s Exchange mailbox, OneDrive, and Teams chats and meetings. With UDM, customers can choose which services should be moved.

Bring user-focused migration to your end users

We built this product with user experience in mind, aiming to limit disruption and enable collaboration at all points in the migration cycle.

Admins will specify the time at which users will feel any impact of their migration. Before this time, only backend syncing will occur, causing no disruption to your users.

Teams Chat migration is built on federation. Users will be able to collaborate across the two tenants, even if user migration times differ.

With meeting migration, meetings are automatically cancelled and rescheduled on a user’s behalf. No longer will organizers need to wait in lobbies to join their meetings or manually recreate their meetings.

Links to files stored in OneDrive will work as redirected links meaning that users will be able to access files shared with them directly from chats and emails.

Move Teams content for the first time

This product uses the technology behind the GA solutions for moving OneDrive and mailboxes. For the first time, Microsoft is offering a cross-tenant migration tool to move Teams data.

A user’s personal chats (1:1s), group chats (1:N), and meeting chats are in scope for migration. Teams migration is built on the idea of federation. When one user migrates before another, they will be able to continue their conversations in Teams in a federated chat.

How to get started

If you're ready to explore the new experience, join the Public Preview available starting today.

To get started, access the documentation on Microsoft Learn for detailed steps, licensing requirements, and how to access a promo code if needed.

Migration orchestrator overview - Microsoft 365 Enterprise | Microsoft Learn

Copilot Pages & Notebooks, Microsoft Loop: IT Admin Update – December 2025

dancontoso — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 16:00:00 GMT

For background, check out last year's Nov 2024 IT Admin update.

Here's this year's progress and summary:

Many key governance, lifecycle, and compliance features for Loop workspaces and Copilot Pages & Notebooks are now available. Learn more here

Key deliverables remaining:

- M365 Group enforcement for shared Loop workspaces

- Departed User workflows for Copilot Pages, Notebooks, and the My workspace in Loop

- Multi-Geo Create in user's PDL for shared Loop workspaces

Read the rest for details

What’s Delivered (since Nov 2024)

Sensitivity Labels for Loop workspaces Learn more here

Guest Sharing for Loop (Entra B2B: Jul 2024 | for orgs with Sensitivity Labels: Mar 2025) Learn more here

Retention Labels for Loop pages and components Learn more here

Admin Management: Membership, ownership, deletion, restoration, search, filter, in SharePoint Embedded Admin Center and PowerShell for containers Learn more here

Promote Members to Owners for Loop workspaces Learn more here

M365 Group owned workspaces: managed by M365 Groups for workspaces created within Teams channels Learn more here

Also, check out the latest from Ignite 2025 on Unlocking Productivity with Copilot Pages.

What’s In Progress / Coming Soon

Feature / Scenario	Status	Target Date	Notes
Enforce Microsoft 365 group-owned Loop workspaces	In development	Q1 CY'26 - 422725	IT policy to require Microsoft 365 groups for lifecycle management of shared Loop workspaces
Multi-Geo Create	In development	Q4 CY'25 - 421616	All new Loop workspaces saved in creator’s PDL geo
Departed User Workflow	In development	Q1 CY’26 - 421612	Temporary or permanent reassignment of existing user-owned containers, copy capability for data
URL to Open Containers in app	In development	Q1 CY'26 - 421612	Application Redirect URL that opens in app when clicked if user has permissions
User-Accessible Recycle Bin	In development	H1 CY’26 - 421615	Restore deleted Copilot Pages, Notebooks from Microsoft 365 Copilot app, restore deleted workspaces from Loop app
Groups as Members (tenant-owned)	In development	H1 CY’26	Invite Microsoft 365 groups as members to Notebooks and workspaces
Graph APIs for management	In development	H1 CY'26	For organizations with dev teams and in house management tools
Read-only members	Paused		Due to lower overall feedback volumes, this work is paused

Target date disclaimer: dates and features are estimates and may change. For the latest status, see the Microsoft 365 Public Roadmap links.

Instead of creating and repeating content directly in the post this year, our IT Admin documentation on learn.microsoft.com and the Microsoft 365 Public Roadmap has been updated based on the above. We recognize that lack of some of these capabilities may still block your rollout. Please drop questions in the comments or reach out to us through your account team. We're excited to be enabling the rollouts of Copilot Pages, Notebooks, and Loop workspaces in your organization.

App Assure Powers Seamless Transitions for the new Outlook

MikeAdams — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 17:00:00 GMT

Microsoft is continually evolving its products to deliver greater functionality, stronger security, and better experiences for users. That evolution is now underway for Outlook as we transition from classic Outlook to the new Outlook for Windows, a move that accelerates access to innovations like Copilot and other AI-native tools essential for success in today’s business landscape.

Users are already asking for their most critical productivity apps to be ready for this change. And just as App Assure helped software companies transition from Exchange Tokens to Nested App Authentication earlier this year, we now stand ready to help you make the transition to new Outlook seamless and worry-free.

Benefits of new Outlook

Outlook is your organization’s hub for communication and collaboration. With the transition from COM add-ins to Web add-ins, new Outlook for Windows empowers both customers and partners alike.

Customers receive a streamlined interface that provides a consistent user experience across devices and AI-native tools built directly into Outlook, all while benefiting from a lower total cost of ownership and quicker access to new features.
Partners benefit from Microsoft’s deep investment in extensibility, allowing them to reach the entire Outlook audience whether those users are working via Windows, Mac, Mobile, or web.

This is why App Assure has been working proactively with the most popular add-ins, collaborating with software companies to update, test, validate, and publish their solutions for the new Outlook. Our goal is simple: when customers make the switch, their essential tools are ready to go, with no disruption and no surprises. Most of the 14 most common scenarios for COM add-ins, those that make up 95% of how COM add-ins are actually used, can already be handled by web add-in APIs either fully or at a basic “minimum viable product” (MVP) level.

Ecosystem Readiness for our Customers

One such app beloved by customers is Applications for Administrative Solutions (AFAS), whose Outlook add-in helps streamline Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) workflows by integrating email-driven tasks directly into daily operations. To ensure a smooth transition to the new Outlook, AFAS partnered with App Assure to modernize their add-in using Graph API to facilitate moving from COM add-ins to web add-ins, aligning with enterprise-grade security and Microsoft Entra policies. Through collaborative testing, technical validation, and direct support from App Assure engineers, AFAS was able to update and publish their add-in with confidence, ensuring that customers won’t miss a beat when they move to new Outlook.

But AFAS is just one example. Many software companies have been preparing their mission critical apps for new Outlook with App Assure’s guidance. Here are a number of the most recent software companies we’ve worked with (with many more on the way):

Many of our partners remark on how streamlined their updates are with App Assure’s collaboration and how easy it is to work with our team. Here are a couple of their recent comments:

AFAS:

GnuPG:

New Outlook has great momentum with users, and organizations want to ensure that the add-ins that are an essential part of their daily workflows continue to work. App Assure stands ready to assist. Many software companies are already taking advantage of our no-cost service providing guidance on how to transition from COM add-ins to web add-ins. Reach out at achelp@microsoft.com and let’s make your add-in ready for the future!

What’s new with Microsoft 365 Backup and Archive – Ignite 2025

BradGussin — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 22:24:11 GMT

Organizations are generating more data than ever. Ransomware events continue to rise. AI usage and adoption is growing, and the role of Microsoft 365 Backup and Microsoft 365 Archive is becoming increasingly important. These services provide resilient recovery at terabyte scale to keep your organization safe, compliant, and operational. With recent regulatory changes like the Digital Operational Resiliency Act (DORA), it matters more than ever that customers have a fast and practical recovery to provide true resilience. Microsoft 365 Backup provides just that.

At Ignite 2025 this week, we’re announcing new innovations that help our customers get ready for Copilot, ensure their content is relevant, secure, and resilient to meet business continuity and trustworthy AI goals. Catch our session, BRK300 – Copilot readiness & resiliency for your Microsoft 365 content at Microsoft Ignite live on Thurs, Nov 20 at 4:45pm PST. If you’re attending Ignite, join us in person at our session or at the Microsoft 365 booth.

Here’s a quick overview of what’s new. Read on to learn more about each capability.

Departmental billing for Backup – Private preview
Folder/File-level restore with Microsoft 365 Backup – Public preview
Microsoft 365 Backup GCC availability – Public preview
Other Microsoft 365 Backup features now generally available
Microsoft 365 Archive customer highlight

Here’s an updated view of our roadmap for Microsoft 365 Backup & Archive.

Microsoft 365 Backup & Archive roadmap for 2025 and beyond. All timing is for planning purposes and subject to change.

Departmental billing – Private preview

Departmental billing gives you flexibility to connect multiple billing policies to the pay-as-you-go Microsoft 365 Backup offering. This enables each department in your company to use their own Azure subscription to pay for their backup consumption. Departmental billing is coming soon and is also planned for Microsoft 365 Archive in the first half of 2026.

To learn more and request to enroll in the Backup departmental billing preview by filling in and submitting the private preview sign-up form.

Administrator connecting an additional billing policy for Sales department.

Granular restore with Microsoft 365 Backup – Public preview

Folder and file restore gives admins the option to browse and restore individual files and folders within Microsoft 365 Backup. This feature offers:

Enhanced control with selective search and restore options.
Precision recovery, allowing you to recover individual files or folders without rolling back entire workloads—minimizing disruption and saving time.

This capability helps recover from accidental deletions and helps admins perform targeted recovery for a variety of scenarios.

Admin browsing site for individual folders and files to restore

To learn more, check out the Granular restore page.

Microsoft 365 Backup GCC availability – Public preview

A top feature request, we’re excited to announce that Microsoft 365 Backup is now available in the Government Community Cloud (GCC). Microsoft 365 in GCC is specifically built to meet the special compliance, security, and operational needs of U.S. government entities. It is designed for federal, state, local, and tribal governments, as well as contractors that handle government-regulated data or are required to meet government standards. This environment ensures compliance with strict U.S. government standards, such as FedRAMP High Impact accreditation.

Additional Microsoft 365 Backup features now generally available

Backup discovery in SharePoint Admin Center

Now it’s even easier for you to discover backup opportunities for your tenant’s SharePoint sites and OneDrive accounts right from the SharePoint admin center home page. You can also find the Microsoft 365 Backup solution from the Microsoft 365 Admin Center Home recommendations panel – not shown here.

SharePoint admin discovers gap in backup coverage and learns how to enable it on SharePoint Admin center home page.

Here's an example of Backup discovery within the Active Sites page, one of the most frequented page by SharePoint admins.

SharePoint admin discovers gap in backup coverage and learns how to enable in SharePoint Admin center active sites page.

Dynamic rules

Dynamic rules are generally available today to automatically add/remove user OneDrive accounts and Exchange mailboxes simplifying administration. You can selectively include distribution lists and/or security groups for OneDrive or Exchange Online. Our service will re-evaluate memberships of those lists/groups daily to modify which users are added or removed from the backup policy.

Administrator configures a dynamic rule to automatically define a user’s OneDrive account and mailbox backup policy.

To learn more, check out Dynamic rules.

Multi-admin notification

Multi-admin notification is generally available today via opt-in email to inform you when a potentially dangerous or routine event has occurred within the Backup tool. We recommend enabling this feature to provide better defense in depth against insider attacks.

If an admin with access to the Backup tool performs a potentially dangerous or malicious action, such as triggering an offboarding event or removing a site or user from the protection policy, all admins on the notification list will be notified of that action. Because the Backup tool has an offboarding grace period, another admin can resolve the malicious act before it impacts business operations. Backups, including “air-gapped” ones, are often the first target of a sophisticated attacker. The multi-admin notification feature provides additional checks and balances to keep an organization safe and healthy.

Administrator enables email notifications to multiple people.

To learn more, check out Multi admin notifications.

Microsoft 365 Archive customer highlight

Microsoft 365 Archive provides a cold data storage tier that enables organizations to keep inactive or aging content – and its rich metadata – within SharePoint at a lower price compared to standard SharePoint storage. In addition, Microsoft 365 Archive helps improve Copilot results by removing outdated content from Copilot search.

Let’s look at how one of our customers used Microsoft 365 Archive as part of their Copilot and AI readiness journey.

Dentsu, a global leader in media and creative services, faced mounting challenges in managing the exponential growth of digital assets across its organization. With creativity and collaboration at the heart of its business, Dentsu’s worldwide teams generate vast quantities of content daily, resulting in more than 2 petabytes of data stored in SharePoint. This rapid expansion led to escalating storage costs, operational complexity, and productivity concerns. By adopting Microsoft 365 Archive and version history limits, Dentsu not only achieved significant cost savings – cutting SharePoint storage costs by 72%, but also strengthened its governance, security, and AI readiness, helping position the organization for future growth and innovation.

“Microsoft 365 Archive delivered what we needed, a cost-effective archiving solution that keeps content within our core Microsoft 365 environment. The operational simplification alone has been significant. One platform, one set of policies, one user experience.”

— Axel Mellars, Head of Collaboration Platforms, Dentsu International

Read the full Dentsu and Microsoft 365 Archive customer story to learn more.

Next steps

As organizations continue to evolve in a data-driven world, Microsoft 365 Backup and Archive stand ready to support your Copilot readiness and resiliency journey. We invite you to explore the latest features, join our Ignite session, and take advantage of resources designed to help you unlock the full potential of your Microsoft 365 environment. Thank you for being part of our community – your feedback and engagement drive our ongoing innovation.

Watch our Ignite session on Thurs, Nov 20 at 4:45pm PST: BRK300 – Copilot readiness & resiliency for your Microsoft 365 content
Read the related Ignite governance blogpost: Copilot readiness and resiliency with Microsoft 365 Content Governance Agent and Microsoft 365 Backup
Learn more about Microsoft 365 Backup
- Get started with Microsoft 365 Backup
Learn more about Microsoft 365 Archive
- Get started with Microsoft 365 Archive
- Read the Dentsu and Microsoft 365 Archive customer story

Ignite’25 Spotlight: Announcing Microsoft Baseline security mode

Sesha_Mani — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 19:00:52 GMT

Enable Security by default for Frontier Organizations

At Microsoft, security is our top priority, and through the Secure Future Initiative (SFI), we are continuously applying what we have learned from incidents to improve our methods and practices, ensuring that security is paramount in everything we create and provide.

Customers often ask:
What is Microsoft’s secure-by-default benchmark for Microsoft 365 and Azure?
How do the learnings from the Secure Future Initiative (SFI) translate into customer value?
Is my tenant security hardened enough?

Today, at Microsoft Ignite 2025, we are excited to announce Microsoft Baseline security mode (BSM) now generally available and rolling out globally. With BSM, we have an answer for those questions.

Introducing Microsoft Baseline security mode

BSM is the first product born from decades of experience operating secure cloud services, responding to incidents, and learnings from the Secure Future Initiative (SFI). By simply opting in, your Microsoft cloud environment—starting with Microsoft 365, and Entra adopts strong secure-by-default settings and eliminates vulnerabilities caused by legacy configurations.

Available in the Microsoft 365 admin center, BSM is simple to use yet offers advanced capabilities enabling you to easily:

Disable legacy settings and enable secure-by-default configurations.
Run simulations for complex settings to assess user and app impact.
Deploy protections you have always wanted with just a few clicks.

This empowers organizations to harden their Microsoft cloud services continuously—every day, week, and year—with minimal effort.

A Continuous Journey

Microsoft Baseline security mode is not a one-time feature; it is an evolving standard. On a regular cadence, we will strengthen the baseline with additional configurations across Microsoft cloud services.

This general availability (GA) release marks the first milestone, starting with Microsoft 365 and Entra. Future releases will expand to Purview, Intune, Dynamics 365, Azure, and more.

What is in the November 2025 GA release of BSM?

The GA release introduces three major areas and 18 configuration settings across five core services:

Office
Exchange
Teams
SharePoint/OneDrive
Entra

This is just the beginning of a journey toward a more secure, resilient cloud for every organization.

Baseline security mode starting configuration areas are:

Authentication
Files
Room devices

Let us walk through each area and major settings in them.

Opt-in for Baseline security mode in Microsoft 365 admin center

As Microsoft 365 tenant admin, you can simply navigate to: Microsoft 365 admin center → Org Settings → Security & Privacy → Baseline security mode.

Figure 1 Administrators can opt in to the default recommended Baseline security mode (BSM) policies directly from the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

This figure highlights that 11 of the 18 configuration settings in BSM are low- to no-impact for users, allowing administrators to safely opt in immediately. For the remaining seven settings, we recommend running them in simulation mode to evaluate potential impact within your tenant. If the impact is minimal, you can confidently disable those settings. If there is meaningful impact, then we recommend kick off change management process with those users and app owners.

BSM provides flexibility and control, enabling administrators to manage each setting independently. You can also experiment by disabling a setting for a defined period—such as few days —to assess impact and dependencies. If critical dependencies exist, you can re-enable the setting and plan to address those dependencies before making permanent changes. This intuitive, phased approach ensures a smooth transition to secure-by-default configurations.

Authentication Area

Legacy authentication protocols and tokens remain one of the most common attack vectors. BSM is designed to significantly reduce this risk by minimizing the attack surface associated with legacy protocols across Microsoft 365 services—including Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and Microsoft 365 apps. To strengthen your security posture, we strongly recommend disabling these legacy configuration settings.

Figure 2 BSM homepage highlights the Authentication pillar and its associated settings.

Block legacy authentication flows and block basic authentication prompts are both security settings aimed at reducing risk from outdated sign-in methods, but they target various aspects of authentication:

Block legacy authentication flows: This setting disables the use of older, less secure authentication protocols (such as POP, IMAP, SMTP, and legacy Exchange Web Services) that do not support modern security features like multi-factor authentication (MFA) or conditional access. When you block legacy authentication flows, you prevent applications and devices from connecting to Microsoft 365 services using these outdated protocols, thereby closing common attack vectors that are frequently exploited in phishing and brute-force attacks.
Block basic authentication prompts: This setting specifically stops users from seeing or interacting with basic authentication pop-up dialogs (the familiar username/password prompt that appears in many older apps or browsers). Blocking basic authentication prompts helps prevent users from entering their credentials into insecure prompts, which could be easily phished. This setting is often used to protect users from accidentally providing their credentials to malicious or untrusted applications, even if legacy authentication is technically still enabled in the environment.

In summary: Blocking legacy authentication flows cuts off entire outdated sign-in methods at the protocol level, while blocking basic authentication prompts prevents users from being presented with insecure sign-in dialogs. Both are important for strengthening your organization's security posture, but they operate at various levels of the authentication process.

Figure. Admin views the status of BSM authentication area settings across services.

To learn more about BS authentication area, check-out Baseline security mode Authentication area

BSM provides granular control and transparency for every configuration setting. Administrators can access detailed telemetry to monitor impact and, where necessary, exclude specific users or applications.

For example, when you opt in to BSM, phishing-resistant authentication for administrators becomes mandatory. However, you may choose to temporarily exempt certain administrators—either to allow time for setup or to accommodate critical business requirements—while maintaining overall security posture.

Another example: You may want to review all application traffic using the legacy Exchange Web Services (EWS) protocol. This visibility allows you to engage app owners and guide them toward adopting modern, secure protocols. Once migration is complete, you can confidently disable the legacy protocol. For deeper analysis, you also have the option to download a detailed report in CSV format.

Figure 4 Admins can view telemetry insights on legacy Exchange Web Services (EWS) protocol usage.

Files Area

Microsoft 365 apps—such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint—are used globally to power productivity. However, legacy file formats like Word (.doc) pose significant security risks. We strongly recommend transitioning to modern, secure file formats to protect your organization.

Even more critical is eliminating ActiveX controls embedded in Office files, which introduce vulnerabilities. With BSM, you can enforce these best practices seamlessly helping your organization adopt secure standards with confidence.

Figure 5 Admins can view the status of Baseline security mode (BSM) Files pillar settings for Microsoft 365 Apps.

Once you consent to view detailed telemetry, BSM provides deep insights to guide your decisions. You can view usage analytics for file-related settings, such as how many users are still working with legacy Office documents that include ActiveX controls, and the number of these files opened in your tenant during the last 28 days.

This level of granular visibility empowers administrators to take targeted actions—such as educating users and driving adoption of modern, secure Office file formats—strengthening your organization’s overall security posture.

Figure 6 Admins can view telemetry insights on ActiveX control usage within Microsoft 365 Apps across their organization.

To learn more about BSM’s Files area settings, check out Secure file formats.

Room devices Area

In BSM, the Room Devices area includes two critical best-practice settings that we strongly recommend implementing:

Block unmanaged devices and resource account sign-ins to Microsoft 365 apps.
Restrict resource accounts on Teams Rooms devices from accessing Microsoft 365 files presented during meetings.

Applying these configurations helps ensure that meeting environments remain secure and that sensitive content is protected from unauthorized access.

To learn more about these settings, check out:

Get started

Microsoft Baseline security mode is now rolling out.
If you are an existing Microsoft 365 customer, simply navigate to:
Microsoft 365 admin center → Org Settings → Security & Privacy → Baseline security mode
Sign in with your Microsoft 365 admin account to access these settings: Settings - Microsoft 365 admin center.

If you are new to Microsoft 365, learn how to try or buy a Microsoft 365 subscription.

BSM simplifies compliance and audit readiness, enhances visibility through built-in dashboards and telemetry, and provides a predictable, secure-by-default foundation. This initiative-taking approach reduces legacy risks and delivers robust protection for organizations of all sizes.

References:

Other Ignite blog references:

Copilot Control System and IT news Ignite blog - https://aka.ms/CCSIgnite2025
Security blog - https://aka.ms/SecurityBlog_Ignite2025
Copilot readiness content governance blog - https://aka.ms/SPOCopilotReadyGovernance
Baseline security mode settings in the Microsoft 365 Admin center - https://learn.microsoft.com/microsoft-365/baseline-security-mode/baseline-security-mode-settings
Microsoft Corporate adopts BSM - https://aka.ms/msd-baselinesecuritymode

Thank you!

Sesha Mani
Partner Group Product Manager

Alex Pozin

Director, Product Marketing Manager

Copilot Notebooks Now Available for Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and Premium Accounts

Gokul_Subramaniam — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 16:00:00 GMT

We’re excited to announce that Copilot Notebooks are now available to Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and Premium subscribers in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app on the Web and in the OneNote app on Windows.

With this rollout, we’re bringing one of our most flexible and powerful AI experience to everyone, whether you’re using Microsoft 365 at home, at school, or for personal projects. It unlocks AI-driven productivity for planning, projects, and everyday tasks, all within the apps you already love.

What are Copilot Notebooks?

Copilot Notebooks are AI-powered workspaces that combine the power of Microsoft Copilot with the familiar structure of a notebook. They are designed for depth, exploration, and creativity. They let you gather content, explore ideas, and generate insights all in one organized place.

Bring everything you need for your personal project, including Copilot chats, Copilot pages, Word documents, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, and more, into a single, focused space. Ask Copilot questions grounded in your collected content to get tailored answers, summaries, and insights.

Unlike traditional notetaking, Copilot Notebooks allow you to:

Bring everything together: Combine Copilot pages, Word docs, PowerPoint presentations, Excel spreadsheets, PDFs, and even Copilot chats into a single notebook.
Ask smarter questions: Get answers grounded in your curated content, not generic web results.
Draft with confidence: Generate summaries, action items, and even full drafts tailored to your notebook’s references.
Stay in flow: Access Copilot Notebooks seamlessly from the Microsoft 365 Copilot app or OneNote, so you don’t have to switch contexts.
Listen on the go: Use Audio Overview to hear a spoken summary of your notebook content—perfect for multitasking.

Think of Copilot Notebooks as your AI-powered project brain that keeps you organized, informed, and productive. Whether you’re planning a trip, managing a project, analyzing data, or researching a complex topic, they give you space to think, explore, and refine ideas at your own pace.

How can Copilot Notebooks help me?

Here’s how you can use Copilot Notebooks in your personal life:

Plan a Family Vacation: Add itineraries, hotel confirmations, and travel guides as references. Ask Copilot to create a day-by-day plan or summarize key attractions.
Organize Home Projects: Gather design ideas, budgets, and shopping lists. Let Copilot draft a step-by-step renovation plan or compare options.
Learn Something New: Combine articles, PDFs, and notes on a topic you’re exploring, such as photography or cooking, and have Copilot summarize concepts or suggest next steps.
Prepare for Events: From birthday parties to community gatherings, Copilot can help you draft invitations, create checklists, and manage timelines.

How to Get Started

Access Copilot Notebooks: Go to https://www.microsoft365.com or open the OneNote Windows app. Find Copilot Notebooks in the left navigation pane.
Create Your First Notebook: Click New Notebook, give it a name, and start adding references such as Word documents, PDFs, PowerPoint decks, and more.
Engage with Copilot: Ask Copilot questions, request summaries, or draft content, all grounded in your notebook content.
Personalize Your Experience: Use custom Instructions to set tone, format, or style preferences for Copilot’s responses.

Availability and Requirements

Copilot Notebooks are generally available to Microsoft 365 Personal, Family, and Premium subscribers in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app and the OneNote Windows app (version 2510 or later).

For work or school (Entra ID) accounts, Copilot Notebooks are generally available to users with a Microsoft 365 Copilot subscription and SharePoint or OneDrive storage.

Why This Matters

With Copilot Notebooks now available to consumer accounts, we’re bringing enterprise-grade AI capabilities to your personal projects. Whether you’re planning, learning, or creating, Copilot Notebooks help you work smarter, not harder, while keeping your data secure and private.

Feedback

Tried Copilot Notebooks? We’d love to hear from you! Share your feedback and suggestions by selecting Help > Feedback in the OneNote app or "..." > Feedback in the Microsoft 365 Copilot app. Your input helps us keep improving Copilot Notebooks for everyone!

What’s New in PowerPoint: Smarter, Faster Ways to Build and Edit Presentations

Derek Johnson — Tue, 18 Nov 2025 16:00:00 GMT

PowerPoint is evolving to help you create professional presentations faster and with less effort. Today we’re introducing new and updated AI-powered tools: our new presentation generation experience with advanced steering and image generation, a smarter Copilot that understands your context, powerful image editing including improved background and object removal, and an early preview of Agent Mode for editing your presentations with natural language. These updates make it easier than ever to turn ideas into polished, professional presentations and make better decks faster.

Better In-app Presentation Creation: More Control, More Creativity

Building a strong story is the foundation of any great presentation, and Copilot now gives you more ways to make it your own. When you create a presentation in the app, you can control the length of your deck, choose a tone that fits your audience—from professional to conversational—and select from new presentation styles before generation.

Copilot uses a generative approach to create presentations, moving beyond static templates to build decks dynamically based on your input. Beyond text, it brings powerful visual options. You can generate AI-powered images that go beyond stock photos, with choices across popular image styles to match your theme.

Once your outline and preferences are set, Copilot creates a fully editable PowerPoint deck—so you can fine-tune every detail without starting from scratch.

Copilot Chat in PowerPoint: Smarter, More Contextual Help

Copilot in PowerPoint now offers an improved chat experience, making it easier to work with AI as you edit your presentation. You can have multi-turn conversations and even tap into specialized Agents from across Microsoft 365.

Responses are better grounded in your presentation content and current selection, so suggestions feel more accurate and useful. Copilot is designed to help you with guidance, ideas, research and generation of visuals—keeping you focused and productive when working with presentations.

Image Editing Is Getting a Major Upgrade

PowerPoint now includes new image editing tools, giving you more control without leaving your presentation. You can remove backgrounds with exceptional precision, erase objects with a simple click, enhance resolution for sharper visuals, apply new effects to images to customize your look, and even extract text from your image to quickly edit. And that’s just the start—these tools bring advanced editing capabilities directly into PowerPoint.

Getting started is easy: right-click any image and select Edit Picture or use the Edit Picture button in the Picture Tools ribbon. From there, you have everything you need to make your visuals stand out.

Agent Mode: A New Way to Work with PowerPoint

Agent Mode in PowerPoint introduces a more intuitive way to edit and refine presentations using natural language in Copilot chat. You can ask PowerPoint to rewrite and format text, insert and style tables, add or edit images, rearrange content, and even create new slides, all while respecting your existing template and branding.

Agent Mode can also draw context from your organization—files, meetings, and emails—alongside web sources to keep presentations accurate and current. This early preview is rolling out now and will continue to expand with additional tools and performance improvements. It’s designed to help you spend less time on the toil of creating presentations and more time on your ideas, making PowerPoint feel like a true co-author for your presentations.

These capabilities represent a major step forward in how presentations are created and refined. PowerPoint is moving toward an AI-first, generative approach that helps you focus on ideas—not the toil of creating presentations. We’re excited for you to try these features and experience the difference.

Better in-app presentation creation updates are already available in preview to the Frontier audience on Windows, Mac and Web.
Copilot Chat improvements inside PowerPoint with contextual image generation are already available to worldwide production audience on Windows, Mac and Web.
Image editing tools now available to Insiders on Windows, with Mac and Web to come.
Agent Mode in PowerPoint is in early preview and is rolling out to Frontier now.

Microsoft 365 Certification

Krishna_Mawani — Tue, 04 Nov 2025 17:00:00 GMT

Why Microsoft 365 Certified Apps and Agents Matter for IT Admins

As an IT Admin, you're constantly balancing innovation, security, and user productivity. With the growing ecosystem of apps/agents integrating into Microsoft 365, how do you ensure the ones your organization adopts are secure, compliant, and reliable?

That’s where Microsoft 365 Certification comes in.

What Is Microsoft 365 Certification?

Microsoft 365 Certification is a rigorous program that evaluates third-party apps across key dimensions like security, compliance, data handling, and privacy. Certified apps/agents meet Microsoft’s highest standards and are verified through independent assessments and documentation reviews.

Top Benefits for IT Admins

🔐 Enhanced Security & Compliance

Certified apps/agents undergo thorough security testing, including vulnerability assessments and penetration testing. Many of the controls these apps / agents adhere to are based on established frameworks such as SOC 2, ISO 27001, and GDPR. This ensures that certified apps align with recognized industry standards, providing confidence when deploying them in enterprise settings.

🛠️ Streamlined Governance

With certification, IT Admins can confidently shortlist apps or agents in their tenant, knowing they meet Microsoft’s governance criteria. This reduces the overhead of manual vetting and accelerates app adoption.

📍 Discoverability in Microsoft 365 Ecosystem

Certified agents are tagged with a “Microsoft 365 Certified” badge in AppSource, Teams Store and the Microsoft 365 admin center, making them easier to find and trust.

📊 Transparency & Documentation

The Microsoft Admin Center and Teams Admin Center include a Security & Compliance section under Integrated Apps where admins can view certification details for apps. This feature is designed to improve transparency and speed up app evaluation. Here’s what is available:

Certification Class

- Publisher Verified – Confirms developer authenticity.

- Publisher Attested – Indicates the app’s security and compliance posture based on self-assessment.

- Microsoft 365 Certified – Shows that the app has passed Microsoft’s rigorous audit against security and compliance controls.

These details help IT teams understand the app’s risk posture before deployment.

Evidence Sharing
Developers can opt to share certification evidence (e.g., policy docs, system configs, penetration test reports) directly in MAC. This evidence is uploaded during the certification process in Partner Center and, if consented, becomes visible to admins in Microsoft Admin Center and Teams Admin Center.

How to Find Certified Apps

Visit the Business Apps – Microsoft AppSource to explore certified apps by category, publisher, or certification level. You can also filter apps directly in AppSource or within the Microsoft 365 admin center.

Join the Conversation

Have you deployed a Microsoft 365 Certified agent in your organization? Share your experience in the comments below or start a thread in the Microsoft Tech Community to help others make informed decisions.

New developer resource page for Microsoft 365 interoperability and data portability

rushmim — Mon, 03 Nov 2025 20:00:00 GMT

Microsoft has long provided interoperability information, interfaces, and tools to help our vibrant ecosystem of partners integrate their products and services with Microsoft 365 productivity applications. This ecosystem includes communication and collaboration solution providers that compete with Microsoft Teams. Alongside these resources, we have also offered data portability solutions to our customers to allow them to move between services as they see fit.

Microsoft’s recent agreement with the European Commission formalizes these values into legal commitments. To meet these commitments and help developers and customers make more effective use of the tools we offer, we are now bringing these resources together into a centralized developer resource page on Microsoft Learn that consolidates interoperability and data portability resources and provides ways for software development companies to provide feedback and request support. You can visit the new Learn page now. To learn more about Microsoft’s Commitments to the European Commission, read the September 12 announcement.