Announcing Microsoft 365 for IT Pros (2027 Edition)
The editorial team is happy to announce the publication of Microsoft 365 for IT Pros (2027 edition) eBook, the most comprehensive and up-to-date book covering tenant management. Previously named Office 365 for IT Pros and now spanning four books with the addition of Microsoft Purview for IT Pros and Power Platform for IT Pros, Microsoft 365 for IT Pros includes coverage of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Entra ID, Teams, Planner, and many other aspects of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, including hundred of examples of using PowerShell and the Microsoft Graph to automate tenant operations. https://office365itpros.com/2026/07/01/microsoft-365-for-it-pros/Microsoft Teams Meeting Controls: July 2026 M365 Champions Community call
Hello Champions! Here’s a recap and top Q+A from our July M365 Champions monthly call of 2026. We kicked off the call annoucing a new Champion Stories program to showcase real-world Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption success stories from the Champions community. Organizations that have successfully introduced or scaled Copilot are invited to share their journey, lessons learned, and best practices. Selected stories will be professionally filmed and published to help other Champions learn from peer experiences. Submit your story at aka.ms/ChampionStory. This month's main topic featured the redesigned Microsoft Teams meeting controls with Michelle Maislen, Principal Product Manager and Ryan Miller, UX Researcher from the Microsoft Teams product group. She explained that the redesign was driven by customer feedback around cluttered meeting controls, accidental clicks, and difficulty finding key features. The new experience introduces a cleaner, more organized toolbar with mic, camera, and share controls prioritized, separates the Share and Leave buttons to prevent accidental exits, moves advanced features into a structured “More” menu, and allows users to customize their meeting controls through drag-and-drop pinning. She acknowledged that changes such as moving Raise Hand under Reactions may be polarizing, but emphasized that users can personalize the toolbar to fit their workflow. Michelle also detailed the phased rollout plan, with users receiving opportunities to opt in before automatic migration, and shared that the redesign will extend across meetings, webinars, and town halls. Throughout the discussion and Q&A, she reinforced that the goal is to create a simpler, more intuitive, and highly customizable Teams meeting experience while preserving access to all existing meeting functionality. Click here to learn more about the Teams Meeting Controls redesign. Q+A from this month's session: 1. When will the new Teams Meeting Controls reach General Availability (GA)? Answer: Microsoft expects the redesigned meeting controls to roll out worldwide in September 2026, following preview validation and user feedback. 2. How does the 20-day rollout experience work? Answer: Users will receive several opportunities to opt in to the new experience. After approximately 20 days, they will be automatically migrated. 3. Can users switch back to the old meeting controls? Answer: Yes. A temporary toggle allows users to switch back to the old experience, although Microsoft plans to remove this option in the future. 4. Why was Raise Hand moved under Reactions? Answer: Research showed users frequently clicked the wrong button when Raise Hand and Reactions were adjacent. Moving Raise Hand under Reactions reduces accidental clicks. 5. Can users move Raise Hand back to the main toolbar? Answer: Yes. Users can drag and pin Raise Hand to the main toolbar if they prefer it there. 6. Can users customize the meeting toolbar? Answer: Yes. Most controls can be pinned, unpinned, and rearranged using drag-and-drop customization. 7. Which controls cannot be moved? Answer: Microphone, Camera, Share, and Leave remain fixed to ensure a consistent core meeting experience. 8. Will toolbar customizations persist between meetings? Answer: Yes. Customizations persist across meetings on the same device. 9. Will toolbar settings sync across multiple devices? Answer: Not initially. Microsoft indicated multi-device synchronization is planned for a future update. 10. Can users pin specific reactions (such as Thumbs Up) to the toolbar? Answer: Not in the initial release. The team acknowledged the request and is considering expanded reaction customization. 11. Will Microsoft add more meeting reactions? Answer: Yes. The Teams team confirmed they're exploring expanded reaction sets and potentially custom organizational reactions. 12. Does the redesign apply to Webinars and Town Halls? Answer: Yes. The redesigned controls will be available across Teams meetings, webinars, and town halls. 13. Is the redesign available in both Teams Desktop and Teams Web? Answer: Yes. The redesigned controls are supported in the Desktop and Web clients. 14. Will Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments be supported? Answer: Yes. Microsoft confirmed support for VDI deployments. 15. Why redesign the meeting controls at all? Answer: The redesign addresses common pain points including: Toolbar clutter Difficulty locating controls Accidental clicks Confusion between Reactions and Raise Hand Accidentally clicking Leave instead of Share 16. Where did features like Notes, Rooms, Apps, Facilitator, and Captions go? Answer: These capabilities were not removed. They have been reorganized under the new More menu to create a cleaner primary toolbar. 17. What adoption and readiness resources are available? Answer: Microsoft published: An IT Pro Change Management Guide An End User Visual Guide Adoption content on adoption.microsoft.com These resources are designed to help organizations prepare users for the transition. 18. Is Microsoft addressing AI-related meeting security concerns? Answer: Yes. The Teams team is actively working on better visibility and notifications for: AI note-taking bots External recording tools Third-party meeting assistants 19. Can meeting actions and decisions automatically flow into other Agents or workflows? Answer: The question was raised by attendees, and Microsoft acknowledged the scenario as valuable feedback. No roadmap or confirmed functionality was announced. 20. Will Education (EDU), GCC, and other government environments receive the redesign? Answer: GCC is expected to receive the update roughly in line with worldwide rollout. GCCH and DoD environments are expected to follow later. EDU deployment details were still being validated during the session. Join us on September 22nd for our next community call. Haven't joined the program yet? It's free! Join here: https://aka.ms/M365Champion. Bring your questions to our discussion forum: https://aka.ms/DriveAdoption.
Microsoft 365 Compliance Checklist: A Complete Guide for Businesses in 2026
As businesses continue to embrace cloud-based productivity, Microsoft 365 has become the backbone of communication, collaboration, and document management for organizations of every size. While the platform offers powerful security and compliance capabilities, simply subscribing to Microsoft 365 does not automatically make your business compliant with industry regulations or internal governance requirements. https://dellenny.com/microsoft-365-compliance-checklist-a-complete-guide-for-businesses-in-2026/
Edit/Mass Edit Powerpoint linked file addresses
As the title suggests I'm looking for a way to manually edit or ideally mass edit the address to linked files in powerpoint. For context I play several games where I need to keep track of what builds I have on which character, and sometimes their in-game inventory. Unfortunately the games don't really have the greatest inventory management for the in-game item side of things. In addition the only way sometimes to remember a character's build is to log onto that character and pull up their build page. With enough characters it can be pain remember what I have where even though I enjoy the games themselves. To get around some of the flaws I have powerpoints I use to keep track of certain things like inventory and build. One ppt may have photos of all the current builds for each character, another may have photos of their inventory and so forth. Certainly not ideal but once the initial setup was done, it's been fairly easy to maintain and I only have to update an odd photo here or there if something changes. Which brings me to my potential issue here. I've been keeping the ppts on a thumb drive along with the photos so I can have everything in one place. Recently the drive decided it was done and checked into that silicone repository in the sky and no longer works. Fortunately however I was able to move everything over to a newer drive before the old one finally checked out. While I was able to save my data, I also introduced 2 side effects I wasn't thinking of at the time in my haste to avoid losing everything. When moving everything over I moved things over in batches to avoid taxing the failing drive too hard and placed each batch in its own folder to avoid copying the same thing more than once. So think something like Folder 1, Folder 2, Folder 3, and so on. To conserve on file size of the ppt itself I always chose the option of "Link to File" when inserting the photos to the slides instead of the basic "Insert" or "Insert and Link" options. This means 2 things, the drive location is no longer correct, and the folder location is no longer correct in the links. While I could in theory just change the drive letter and make the folder structure the same again, moving it in batches actually let me organize the raw photos better, but means I now need to correct the addresses for the ppts themselves since the old links no longer work. In the program I know we can go to Info, then press the Edit Links To Files button, and try to change stuff there. The problem is that I can only change one thing at the time there. On top of that if I press the Change Source button, it wants me to find the photo individually vs just chanting the text address of the photo. These wouldn't be issues if it was just a few photos we're talking about as I could just go in, relink by hunting each one and roll. However there are around 250 photos that I would have to do this for, and it would be very tedious. Plus the fact the previews don't work anymore either. (yes i'm one of those kinds of gamers) So what I'm hoping you folks can help me with is a way to edit the text addresses manually for the links. Ideally in mass groups, but I can do it one at the time if I have to. For example let's say I have photo one and it's address looks like "D:\Game1\Character Group1\CharacterA\Build1\Photo1" on the old drive. What I want is a way to change it to say "E:\Game1\Batch1\Character Group1\CharacterA\Build1\Photo1" type of thing. Ideally I'm hoping for a way to change those addresses in mass. If I have to text edit them all one by one, that's still alot faster than having to hunt and relink each photo individually. Thanks in advance for any advice.Is Microsoft 365 Too Complex for Humans to Understand?
A recent Reddit thread asked the very good question whether Microsoft 365 is now so complex that no single person can understand the ecosystem. There’s no doubt that Microsoft 365 is much more challenging to manage today than ever before. More features, more functionality, more settings, and more updates create an ever-changing environment that’s interconnected in many different ways. What would company executives do if their tenant administrator left? https://office365itpros.com/2026/07/31/microsoft-365-too-complex/AutoSave disabled when opening SharePoint-synced files from Finder after macOS Tahoe 26.6 update
Files stored in SharePoint Online and synchronized locally through OneDrive are opened as local documents when launched from Finder. Office applications display "Saved to my Mac" and AutoSave is turned off by default. However, opening the exact same files through Word/Excel > Open > Sites, or via SharePoint "Open in Desktop App", correctly identifies them as cloud documents. In that scenario, AutoSave is enabled and collaboration/version history features work as expected. Troubleshooting already performed: OneDrive reset and re-linked SharePoint library re-synced Signed out and back into both Office and OneDrive Removed Microsoft credentials from macOS Keychain and re-authenticated Recreated local OneDrive sync relationships Verified OneDrive File Provider extensions are enabled Verified Office applications and OneDrive are fully up to date Tested with newly created files and existing files Tested "Always Keep on This Device" with no change in behavior The issue appears to be specific to the Finder-to-Office launch path after upgrading to macOS Tahoe 26.6. Before upgrading to macOS Tahoe 26.6, opening the same SharePoint-synchronized files directly from Finder correctly preserved cloud document identity and AutoSave was enabled as expected. I discussed this issue in detail with Apple Support, but they quickly dismissed it, saying that the problem is not on Apple's side and that I should contact Microsoft instead.
Authenticator não funciona
Tenho um e-mail corporativo (sou o adm único, nao tem ti) que faço login na conta do powerbi, contudo, meu celular com o authenticator foi perdido e já nao tenho mais acesso, por este motivo, nao consigo mais logar na conta pq ele sempre direciona para o authenticador que nao tenho mais acesso e não abre a possibilidade de receber o codigo por outro meio, (sms ou email). ja tentei vários recursos (chat, telefone do suporte) para recuperar a conta e nao consigo. Todas as opções direcionam para o autenticador. solicito a microsoft que dê uma solução, resetando o autenticador anterior para que eu possa acessar a conta e incluir métodos alternativos de desbloqueio, ou sugira outra solução.Azure Tops $100 Billion As Microsoft Reports FY26 Q4 Results
On July 29, Microsoft released their FY26 Q4 results. We learned that Microsoft 365 Copilot has 30 million paid seats, but that’s still less than 7% of the Microsoft 365 installed base, so there’s lots of room for Copilot to grow. Microsoft didn’t provide a number for Teams monthly active users, which is strange because no new data has appeared for 11 quarters. Among all the numbers, one thing’s for sure. The Microsoft Cloud makes lots of money. https://office365itpros.com/2026/07/30/fy26-q4-microsoft-results/
How can specific users be exempted from a tenant-scoped Microsoft 365 Apps Policy?
Hello, I am looking for guidance regarding Microsoft 365 Apps Cloud Policy Service behavior and policy precedence. Current configuration: In Microsoft 365 Apps Admin Center → Policy Management (config.office.com), we have the following policies: Policy 1 Name: Shorten Meeting Global Scope: Tenant Priority: 0 Configured settings: Shorten appointments and meetings = Enabled Reduce the end time of short appointments and meetings = 5 minutes Reduce the end time of long appointments and meetings = 10 minutes Policy 2 Name: Test Scope: User (Security Group) Priority: 1 Assigned only to a dedicated test group Relevant settings configured as Not Configured Observed client behavior: On corporate-managed devices, affected users receive the following registry values: HKCU\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Cloud\Office\16.0\Outlook\Options\Calendar shortenevents = End_Early endearlyshort = 5 endearlylong = 10 The Outlook option: File > Options > Calendar > Shorten appointments and meetings is greyed out. Additional validation: Using the same Microsoft 365 account on an external non-corporate device: The above registry path is not present. The Outlook option is editable. Testing performed: A user-scoped Cloud Policy was created and assigned to a dedicated security group. For the "Shorten appointments and meetings" setting, only the following options are available: Enabled Not Configured There is no Disabled option. but the Tenant policy continued to apply and the Outlook option remained locked. Questions Is there a supported way to exempt specific users from a tenant-scoped Microsoft 365 Apps Cloud Policy when the setting only supports "Enabled" and "Not Configured" and does not provide a "Disabled" option? Does Not Configured in a User-scoped policy allow evaluation to continue to the lower-priority Tenant policy? If policy precedence is changed so that: Test Policy = Priority 0 Tenant Policy = Priority 1 would the User policy potentially suppress the Tenant setting? Is there a supported way in Microsoft 365 Apps Cloud Policy Service to provide exceptions for specific users while keeping the Tenant policy as the organizational default? Has anyone successfully implemented an exclusion or override scenario for the "Shorten appointments and meetings" setting? Any guidance or documentation references would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.Complete Microsoft 365 Security Checklist: Protect Your Business from Modern Cyber Threats
Microsoft 365 has become the backbone of modern businesses. From emails and file sharing to collaboration and cloud storage, organizations rely on it every day. However, as Microsoft 365 adoption grows, cybercriminals increasingly target it through phishing attacks, credential theft, ransomware, business email compromise (BEC), and data leaks. https://dellenny.com/complete-microsoft-365-security-checklist-protect-your-business-from-modern-cyber-threats-2026-guide
