A Method to track current and upcoming changes to M365 Products
Good evening (from Ireland at least), I've spent most of today traipsing down a variety of dead-ends and soon-to-be-discontinued features looking to create a useful location where I can find/send all new updates to products that I can peruse and ultimately highlight ones that may be of particular importance in my organisation. I've had a long chat with Copilot today and while I've made significant progress in some areas (had upwards of 30 great questions according to Copilot! ;P), when it comes to the final product, there's always some missing connector, or some RSS feed that is no longer supported. What I'm looking for here is any input on how you manage to stay ahead of changes and I'll share everything I'm doing and have learned as well, in the hope that the discussion is somewhat mutually beneficial. What I do: Message Centre: Manually check the Message Center (under Service Health in M365 Admin Center). You can sort by product here and by relevance which is quite handy. Link: https://admin.cloud.microsoft/?#/MessageCenter (Access to the M365 Admin Center on your tenant is required for this). Today I found out you can also send emails to yourself (and Teams channels) here so awaiting the next message to see if this has worked. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be a way of migrating past messages over so I'll have to go through these myself first. Road Maps: These have been the bane of my day. Currently, I actively check the road maps of the products I manage but going forward, I'd like to be able to track major changes to products used in my organisation so I can give users a heads up. I initially tried Power Automate to send updates to myself, however, it's not a feature widely used in our org yet and isn't well supported, so I wasn't too surprised when my efforts were blocked by existing policy. Not long after, I found RSS feeds, which seemed to be the answer to my problems. I created RSS Feeds for each of the Road Maps that I found useful, assured by Copilot that these would work. The assurance wasn't fell founded however as, true to form, once I showed Copilot by errors, they remembered that they were there all along! :') I'm yet to find a useful solution here beyond my current efforts so any assistance would be greatly appreciated. Community Blogs The final recommendation was these Community Blog posts which, to be fair, I've had immense success with to date. However, there is a slight issue with filtering. While I did finally get the RSS Feed to work on something (the Tech Comm M365 RSS Feed), it did then proceed to send me a mass of emails on every topic under the Sun & Moon. I've decided to return to the drawing board tomorrow with this, but I'm content in knowing that RSS isn't just a myth at least. I think what I'd like here is just to receive notifications when approved Blogs are posted (i.e., Monthly OneDrive Updates and the equivalent for other products). OneDrive Office Hours: This is a fansastic resource I do use every month as it gives you the opportunity to get in contact with the people who know the most about the product and the issues you're facing. I've spent weeks in a ticket before, only to raise it in one of these meetings and get a solution that took half an hour to set up. You'll get a yes or a no, but at least you'll have an answer. Copilot Chat: I don't have the full Copilot license because I haven't had a need for it yet. Everything I've wanted to do, I've been able to do in Copilot Chat. We haven't yet looked too much into Agents, and as a Public body, aren't going to rush into it until we know it's viable and can be supported. In the interim, I'm happy to test the waters with Copilot Chat asking it for Monthly Summaries on a variety of products, time frames, etc. It isn't perfect but it's faster than I am. It can find the sources for me and I can take it from there. As an organisation, we'll be pushing out all users on the most recent version (-1) on the Monthly Enterprise Channel. This means that they'll be supported whilst also being shielded from any brand new features. Our team will be on the most recent version and will be able to note any upcoming changes ahead of time. These are what I'm using so far but would be very grateful for any further input. Thanks in advance, Chris MartinSharePoint Site Administrators Can Now Control Restricted Content Discovery
Restricted Content Discovery (RCD) is a feature that blocks access by Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents to the files stored in a SharePoint Online site. Instead of relying on tenant administrators, site administrators can now enable or disable RCD. It’s a natural evolution of what is an essential feature to keep sensitive and confidential information being leaked inadvertently by AI. https://office365itpros.com/2026/01/13/rcd-site-level/
Conditional formatting in SharePoint lists using JSON
I have my conditional formatting working if I only refer to one number. As can be seen in the image below if the cell I want to format has the number "1" in it the formatting works. I would like the same formatting to work if for example the number was less than "2" or between 3 and 5. I've tried several options with starting with "=if...", but it either breaks the conditional formatting or doesn't make a change. I have been able to find an example that matches the attributes. Full disclosure the conditional formatting continues so I can apply different colors to other individual numbers. I'm hoping the if I resolve on the set of numbers the others will follow the same framework.
OneDrive/SharePoint permission problem
Hello, the problem is that we have a user which wants to share file(s) with another user. If he shares the file and he gives him permissions for read and write the he is still not allowed to open it, even if he askes for permissions an those will be granted it still does not work. This works (or does not work) with several files, but not with all. If those files ares shared with other users it works instantly. We have another user with this problems, the only thing they have in common is, that both were deactivated over a period of I think 5-6 months or even longer. It is not with every file, and it does not matter if those files were uploaded in SharePoint or OneDrive and it does not really matter who uploaded it. If I e.g. downloads a file which does NOT work and I upload it again it works. I am not sure if I described it properly, but this problem only appears for 2 users which were disabled and unlicensed for a longer period of time. Is the only way to fix this to delete the account and create a new one, so that a whole new User ID is created and nothing is related to the old user or is there a proper way to handle it, because to delete the account and create a new one is more or less the last thing I want to do. Thanks in advanceHow to Design a Future-Proof SharePoint Information Architecture
A future-proof SharePoint Information Architecture balances business needs, user experience, and technical scalability. In this blog, we’ll explore what future-proofing really means, common pitfalls to avoid, and step-by-step technical guidance to design an IA that stands the test of time. https://dellenny.com/how-to-design-a-future-proof-sharepoint-information-architecture/SharePoint sync issues when opening from File Explorer
Hi there, Some users in my company are having issues with files not syncing with SharePoint when they save them and are also unable to concurrently edit files. They open the files via File Explorer and the 'autosave' functionality is disabled. Enabling autosave prompts them to save as a new copy. These users have recently switched to a new laptop running Windows 11 (previous laptop was Windows 10) and had no sync issues when using the old laptop. If the user first opens Excel/Word and then uses the File menu to open the document then the autosave is enabled and the file syncs with SharePoint. Here are some of the troubleshooting steps I've tried: stopping the sync and starting it again unlinking the pc and re-syncing the SharePoint site uninstalling and re-installing OneDrive Has anyone come across this issue or know of a fix that I haven't tried yet? Regards, SteveSharePoint vs Teams vs OneDrive: When to Use Each (and When Not To)
If your organization uses Microsoft 365? then you have gone through the pain point of which tool to use “Should this live in SharePoint, Teams, or OneDrive?” At first glance, all three tools seem to do the same thing store files, share documents, and help people collaborate. But using the wrong tool in the wrong situation can quickly lead to duplicated files, messy permissions, frustrated users, and lost productivity. This blog breaks down what SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive are actually for, when to use each one and more importantly when not to. https://dellenny.com/sharepoint-vs-teams-vs-onedrive-when-to-use-each-and-when-not-to/SharePoint Online Dumps Legacy Compliance Features
MC1211579 (3 January 2026) announces the retirement of four legacy SharePoint compliance features in favor of Purview Data Lifecycle management and Records management. It’s always unsurprising when Microsoft chooses to remove old features developed for on-premises and replaces them with better online options, which is exactly what’s happening here. Some tenants might face additional licensing requirements for Purview. https://office365itpros.com/2026/01/05/sharepoint-compliance-legacy/SharePoint Online Expands Version Expiration for Audio and Video Files
Microsoft is launching version expiration policies in SharePoint Online for audio and video files. The approach is the same as used for intelligent versioning of Office files stored in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business and can be configured at the tenant, site, and document library level. If your tenant uses Clipchamp, this could be a way to save expensive SharePoint storage. https://office365itpros.com/2025/12/17/version-expiration-policy/Connecting SharePoint Data to Copilot Insights A Complete Guide to Smarter Collaboration
The integration between SharePoint and Copilot Insights gives the chance to users ask natural questions about their organization’s data and receive instant, intelligent answers, with no more digging through folders or chasing document versions. https://dellenny.com/connecting-sharepoint-data-to-copilot-insights-a-complete-guide-to-smarter-collaboration/
