Teams SMB at Microsoft 365 Community Conference
We are looking forward to meeting SMBs and SMB partners attending the Microsoft 365 Community Conference next week. đ Learn more about the conference and register today. We have a wonderful lineup of Teams SMB-focused events: đ¤ Teams SMB Breakout Session â Deepening Customer Connections for Your SMB Through Teams Learn about the latest ways Teams is making it easier for SMBs to get started, deeply connect with their customers, and collaborate effectively with other businesses. Thursday, 9:00 AM â 9:45 AM | Oceana Grand 10 (Pacific Resort) ⥠Teams SMB Lightning Talk â How Teams Helps SMBs Build Real Customer Connections Deep dive into how live chat in Teams is helping SMBs build stronger customer connections. Wednesday, 3:15 PM â 3:35 PM | Microsoft Booth in the Expo Hall đ¤ SMB Meet and Greet Meet other SMBs, SMB partners, and members of the Teams SMB product team. Make a connection, share feedback, and grab some swag stickers made with SMBs in mind. Wednesday, 11:30 AM â 12:30 PM | Caicos 1 đŁď¸ Teams SMB Roundtables Shape the future of Teams SMB by sharing your feedback and insights. Tuesday, 2:45 PM and Thursday, 10:00 AM | Java Sea 1 (Pacific Resort) đ˘ SMB Office Hours Meet product team members focused on improving Microsoft 365 for SMBs. Share feedback, ask questions, and make connections. Check the conference app for the latest times and venues. Wishing you safe travels to Orlando â see you there!Simplified controls for managing external collaboration in Teams admin center
We know that collaboration with customers, vendors, and partners outside of your small or medium business is critical to your success. We also know that many SMBs have limited IT admin resources, and setup can be a challenge. To make external collaboration setup in Microsoft Teams easier for your SMB, we have introduced a new overview page in Teams admin center that consolidates settings into a single view and have simplified how we describe the settings you can apply. From the new settings, you can select from pre-configured modes that quickly set smart defaults that are right for your business. If your business is open to external collab across chats, calls, meetings, and teams and channels, you can select Open mode to quickly get setup If your business is more conservative, you can select Controlled to align to pre-existing external collab defaults If you want full control of what is enabled and disabled for your business, you can always select Custom as well We're looking forward to hearing your feedback about the new settings experience. Learn more about how you can use these settings, Unified external collab settings managementMore standards are coming to the Teach Module and Teams for Education!
Hi everyone! As educators, you have told us that aligning lessons, assessments, and classroom materials to the standards you actually use is one of the most important parts of making AI-powered teaching tools useful in practice. When standards are available and easy to apply, it becomes much faster to create materials that fit your local curriculum and instructional goals. That is why we are continuing to expand the standards experience across Microsoft Education. We are excited to share a new wave of international standards coming to the standards experience in Teach and in Teams for Education. These standards will support experiences in the Teach module across Lesson Plans, Quizzes, and Rubrics, and they are also coming to Assignments in Teams for Education. If you don't see your country listed, you can request more standards at this link. In this post, we will share what is coming this week, what is planned over the next two months, what we are targeting for summer, and how we plan to keep you updated going forward. Why this matters Standards alignment helps you spend less time translating curriculum requirements into classroom materials and more time supporting student learning. Whether you are building a lesson plan, generating a quiz, creating a rubric, or preparing future assignments workflows in Teams for Education, access to the right standards makes those experiences more relevant and easier to use. Our goal is to keep expanding coverage so more educators can work with the standards they already know and trust, in more countries, subjects, and grade bands. New standards added in 2025 In 2025, we expanded standards coverage with a new set of international additions, including: Austria Canada - Ontario Early Language Learners Health & PE Technology Education Art Canada - Quebec Francophone Canada - Ontario World Languages French as a Second Language Native Languages American Sign Language as a Second Language Classical Studies and International Languages Egypt England Arts Education Health & PE World Languages Technology Education Career Technical Education Finland Kuwait UK GCE AS and A Level Qualifications across a broad range of subject areas These additions helped expand standards coverage beyond core national frameworks and into more subject-specific and qualification-based experiences. Recently added We have already started rolling out new international standards this spring. Recent additions include: Czech Republic UK additions, including recent support for Scotland, Wales, and UK GCE AS and A Level qualifications New Brunswick - Technology Standards Kuwait - Language Arts, Math, Social Studies Estonia - Language Arts, Math, Science Estonia - Social Studies Latvia New Brunswick - Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies These recent additions laid the groundwork for the next wave of standards now arriving across Teach and Teams for Education. Coming this week This week, we are adding the following standards to the standards experience in Teach and Teams for Education: Finland Lithuania Norway Romania These additions continue our recent rollout of international standards and expand access for educators who want to align AI-assisted lesson creation and assessment workflows to local curriculum expectations. Coming in the next two months Over the next two months, we expect to continue expanding standards coverage with the following additions: Slovakia Sweden Egypt Canada - Quebec Francophone Standards India NCERT - Hindi Language Arts India NCERT - Sanskrit Language Arts Bahrain Lebanon Oman Qatar Greece We also have additional standards in progress that are on the roadmap, with timing still being finalized: Austria Kuwait - Science India NCERT - Urdu Language Arts Australia ACARA National Technology Education Health & PE Art Languages Canada - New Brunswick additional subject expansion Health & PE Art Languages Norway vocational standards As these become available, they will light up the same standards-backed experiences across Teach and Teams for Education. Planned for summer Looking ahead, we are planning an even broader set of standards expansions over the summer. This work is designed to add more international coverage across core subjects and additional curriculum frameworks. The following are planned for summer: Belgium - Flemish Catholic Network Standards (VVKSO) Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Canada, British Columbia ADST (Entrepreneurship & Marketing) Career Education (Career-Life Education, Career-Life Connections) Core Competencies Canada: Ontario Business Studies Canadian & World Studies Co-op Ed Guidance & Career Ed Ontario Catholic expectations (ICE) CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) Language Arts Portugal Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Germany: NRW State Kernlehrplan Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Hong Kong Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Turkey Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Vietnam Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Costa Rica Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Peru Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Guatemala Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Morocco Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Croatia Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Kenya Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Bolivia Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Chile Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Pakistan Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies Panama Language Arts, Math, Science, Social Studies This planned summer wave reflects our continued focus on expanding standards coverage in ways that are useful for real classroom workflows across regions. Where you will see these standards As standards coverage expands, educators will see the impact across several experiences: Teach module - Lesson Plans Teach module - Quizzes Teach module and Teams for Education â Rubrics Teams for Education â Assignments Instructions (Coming soon) This means more opportunities to use standards as part of lesson creation, assessment design, and classroom workflows without having to start from scratch. What this means for educators As more standards become available, you will be able to: Align lesson materials to more local and regional curriculum requirements Build quizzes and rubrics that better reflect what students are expected to know and do Use standards-backed workflows in Teach across more countries and subject areas Prepare for future standards-aligned experiences in Assignments in Teams for Education For educators working across multiple countries, languages, or curriculum systems, this expanded coverage can help reduce manual work and make AI-generated outputs more relevant to your teaching context. We plan to keep sharing updates We also plan to share regular blog updates roughly every quarter so you can see what standards are newly available, what is rolling out next, and where we are continuing to expand coverage. Our goal is to make these updates easier to track so educators, school leaders, and partners can stay current on what is available in the standards experience across Microsoft Education. Helpful links Getting started with Teach Modify content - Align to Standards Microsoft Teams for Education International standards currently available through EdGate Request additional standards Share feedback with us by joining our EDU Insider Program Have questions or want to let us know which standards you would like to see next? Drop a comment below or submit a request through our Standards Feedback form. We would love to hear what curriculum frameworks matter most in your classrooms. Until next time, Samantha Fisher ¡ Microsoft EducationNew information literacy features in Search Progress now generally available
Hello all! Last September, we shared a preview of new information literacy features coming to Search Progress â designed to help students pause, think critically, and show their reasoning as they research online. Today, weâre excited to share that these features are generally available for all educators using Search Progress through Assignments in Teams for Education and the Microsoft 365 LTIÂŽ. A special thank you to the educators who participated in the preview and shared feedback along the way; your insights helped shape these features into what they are today. See it in action Want a walkthrough before reading the details? Watch our Elevate Signature Series session, âShow Me Your Thinking,â where Dr. Geri Gillespy and I discuss future ready skills along with Search Progress setup, the full educator-to-student workflow, and how these skills connect to global assessment frameworks like PISA 2029. Why process matters more than ever Information literacy skills like verifying sources, understanding context, and thinking critically are foundational for responsible and effective navigation of online information. These skills become even more critical as AI becomes an integral part of learning and daily life, where students donât just need access to information, they need to know how to evaluate it. To ensure these features were developed in alignment with the latest in online reasoning research, we consulted with experts from the Digital Inquiry Group â a team with decades of experience as curriculum designers, classroom educators, researchers, and teacher educators â recognized with awards from UNESCO, the American Educational Research Association, and the School Library Association, to name a few. Whatâs now available The enhanced Search Progress features introduce structured activities and checkpoints â cognitive forcing functions that encourage students to pause, consider, and articulate their reasoning as they navigate the complex world of online information. Hereâs what you can now enable for your assignments: Evaluating source reputability: Instead of relying solely on what a source says about itself, students investigate the individuals or organizations behind the information by looking into what other sources say about them, like how employers use references in a job interview. Cross-checking and lateral reading: âUsing the internet to check the internetâ, students compare information and perspectives across multiple sources to reveal patterns, differences, and possible inaccuracies. Impact awareness: Students consider what could be at risk if the information is inaccurate or fabricated with the new "factual importance" checkpoint. For instance, health advice carries different consequences than an AI-generated image of a cat dancing at the disco. Identifying source purpose: Information is created for a reason. Students consider who created a source, and whether itâs trying to inform, persuade, sell, or entertain. Metacognitive reflection: Students reflect on the research process itself including why certain sources stood out, which strategies worked best, and how to apply those learnings in the future. Not just for research projects These features arenât only for formal research assignments. Theyâre designed for class activities that involve online research, whether students are exploring a new topic, gathering sources for a presentation, or verifying information for a discussion. The goal is to build habits that transfer throughout the digital information ecosystem, from navigating social media to evaluating AI-generated content. For example: A science educator assigns a pre-lab research task on chemical reactions. By enabling Source Reputation and Factual Importance, students learn to prioritize safety data sheets and academic sources over unverified blogs and to think about why accuracy matters when the stakes are high. A social studies educator uses Cross-check for an assignment focusing on current events. Students discover that a viral statistic has been reported differently across sources, and they practice tracing claims back to their origin â building lateral reading habits theyâll carry into their media consumption outside of school. What educators are saying Teacher librarians, in particular, have told us that the âprocess over productâ approach gives them something theyâve been missing â visibility into the process of student inquiry, not just what they turn in. These features give them a window into the journey, not just the destination. With new scaffolds that support cross-checking and the investigation of source reputation, Search Progress now covers more of the skills theyâve been trying to teach. Weâve heard from educators that the explanation prompts reveal a side of student thinking that traditional assignments don't often capture. During an early pilot, students pushed back on a text field that didnât scroll to expand, not because they wanted less writing, but because they had more to say about why they chose their sources and wanted more space to explain their thinking. Students who described themselves as not being strong essay writers found a different way to show their thinking, and when they knew that their reasoning mattered as much as the final product, it changed how they engaged with the assignment. Preparing students with future-ready skills for the age of AI As educators worldwide work to build studentsâ information literacy skills, global frameworks are evolving to match. The OECD recently published a first draft of the PISA 2029 Media and Artificial Intelligence Literacy (MAIL) assessment framework â a new assessment that will measure 15-year-oldsâ ability to critically evaluate digital and AI-generated content across all participating countries. We were interested to see how closely the skills that Search Progress helps build align with the competences this framework describes. The MAIL assessment places significant emphasis on evaluating source credibility, assessing purpose and bias, and cross-checking information across multiple sources â all skills that Search Progress is designed to support through structured activities and checkpoints in the flow of research. Educators have also shared that these features help address a tension many are navigating right now: how to maintain academic integrity when AI-generated work is increasingly difficult to distinguish from student work. Rather than relying on detection tools at the end of the pipeline, Search Progress makes the research process itself the artifact, which gives educators evidence of student thinking throughout. Of course, information literacy is broader than any single tool. The MAIL framework also includes competences around content creation and collaborative digital participation that go beyond what Search Progress currently addresses. But for the core skill of analysing and evaluating online information â which the framework highlights as one of its most heavily weighted competences â Search Progress can help you give your students meaningful practice right now. By integrating these research habits into everyday assignments, youâre helping students build skills that will serve them well beyond any single assessment â from navigating social media to evaluating AI-generated content in their daily lives. Getting started Open Assignments in Teams for Education (or your LMS via the Microsoft 365 LTI). Create a new assignment and select Search Progress as a Learning Accelerator. Choose which information literacy features to enable for this assignment; you can mix and match based on the lesson. Customize the checkpoint card prompts to fit your subject area and grade level. Assign it to your class and watch the research process unfold. Requirements Available to all Microsoft 365 Education customers Classes set up in Teams for Education or the Microsoft 365 LTI Helpful links đ Take the MS Learn course â Intro course for educators đ Microsoft 365 LTI app overview â Bring Search Progress into your LMS đŹ Join the Education Insiders Program â Share feedback directly with our product team Weâre committed to helping you foster information and AI literacy, and your feedback continues to shape how these tools evolve. Join the Search Progress channel in the Education Insiders Program to connect with other educators, attend community calls, and share your experience directly with the product team. If youâre not yet an EIP member, sign up here: aka.ms/JoinEIP. Have questions or ideas? Drop them in the comments below. Iâd love to hear how youâre using these features in your classroom! Until next time, Emma Gray Product Manager II Microsoft Education Learning Tools InteroperabilityÂŽ (LTIÂŽ) is a trademark of the 1EdTech Consortium, Inc. (1edtech.org)OneDrive, Assignments, and Learning Accelerators are now Generally Available in Microsoft 365 LTI
Enhance your LMS with the power of Microsoft 365 Today, Microsoft is announcing general availability of the OneDrive and Assignments (including Learning Accelerators) experiences as part of Microsoft 365 LTIÂŽâbringing seamless integration of Microsoft 365 tools into learning platforms to simplify workflows and enhance teaching and learning whether youâre using Canvas, Schoology, Brightspace, Blackboard, Moodle or other LMS platforms. Microsoft 365 LTI makes it easier than ever for educators and students to leverage the full suite of Microsoft 365 Education tools within existing workflows. And now, the OneDrive, Assignments and Learning Accelerators (Reading Progress, Speaker Progress and more) experiences previewed in July with the new Microsoft 365 LTI build on all the capabilities of the classic tools and add additional features in one convenient tool. Educators and students benefit from a more seamless and up-to-date LMS experience with Microsoft 365 Education. Teach and learn with confidence knowing that Microsoft 365 LTI is backed by Microsoft's industry-leading security and compliance tools with Microsoft 365 Education. Deploy and access the new Microsoft 365 LTI in your LMS today with the overview and deployment guides. IMPORTANT: If you have deployed the Microsoft 365 LTI previously, you do not need to redeploy in your LMS â however, we do recommend reviewing the deployment guide for any new recommendations or deployment guidance, and revisit your Admin Settings to check your M365 Admin Consent status and review the apps enabled for your educators to have access to in their courses. Classic LTI retirements Microsoft OneDrive LTI, OneNote LTI, Teams Assignments LTI and Reflect LTI are set to retire next September 17, 2026. The Microsoft 365 LTI replaces these separate LTI tools going forward and we encourage you to start proactively migrating your course this term. You will find migration guidance in our admin documentation to help take steps now. We will continue to provide any additional migration guidance as necessary OneDrive and Microsoft 365 files with embedded editors and new placements The new Microsoft 365 LTI tool expands beyond the capabilities of the existing OneDrive LTI tool with capabilities for Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, including Microsoft 365 Copilot - and is now available within your LMS experience by embedding or linking documents, videos, PDFs, and images into course materials like assignments, discussions, modules, announcements and more. Microsoft 365 LTI orchestrates management of permissions to prevent oversharing, and with dedicated course-level storage to support proper document lifecycle management, assignment workflows, and use of Microsoft 365 Copilot. With Canvas, Collaborations are supported along with students editing and submitting Microsoft 365 documents as an external tool assignment without leaving your LMS. This functionality replaces the classic Microsoft OneDrive LTI which will retire September 17, 2026. Learning Accelerators and AI-enhanced assignments available in your LMS - without the requirement for Microsoft Teams With Assignments in Microsoft 365 LTI, you will be able to use Learning Accelerators, multiple-document submissions, AI rubric and instructions generation, AI-assisted feedback, auto-graded Forms and other assignment capabilities directly within your learning management system (LMS), without the need to create and sync a Microsoft Team for your class. Assignments in Microsoft 365 LTI no longer require Teams access, enabling more LMS users to benefit from AI-enhanced experiences that were formerly exclusive to Microsoft Teams for Education. And Assignments can be created, managed, completed, and graded, without leaving your LMS with grades and feedback available to sync automatically to the LMS gradebook. New: Improve student speaking and presenting skills in 13 languages with Speaker Progress Exciting new AI Feedback features for educators to leverage, students can practice for in-class presentations or save class time by presenting and turning in their presentations for grading. This capability is included automatically in the new Microsoft 365 LTI tool. Existing, Teams-based assignments will continue to work and can be copied to new courses, so no migration is necessary. The assignments functionality in Microsoft 365 LTI replaces the classic Teams Assignments which will retire September 17, 2026. Dive into the new Microsoft 365 LTI to streamline your LMS experience We are bringing our Microsoft 365 Education capabilities for learning management systems together into a single, unified tool to streamline the user experience. Educators will be able to access Learning Accelerators, Reflect, OneDrive, Teams, and more in their LMS courses, without having to enable multiple tools separately, and without overcrowding menus where LTI tools surface. Whether adding content to a module, creating an assignment, or scheduling a meeting for a class, you will be able to easily access Microsoft 365 Education related features directly in your LMS workflow. Microsoft 365 LTI is available for supported LMS platforms, including Canvas by Instructure, PowerSchool Schoology Learning, Blackboard by Anthology, D2L/Brightspace, Moodleâ˘, and for any LTI 1.3 Advantage compliant platform. Migration guidance and tools Guidance for migrating users from the classic LTI tools to the Microsoft 365 LTI can be found in our First Time Configuration guide. We strongly recommend guiding users to leverage the new experiences for OneDrive, Assignments, Reflect and OneNote Class Notebooks in the Microsoft 365 LTI as the classic experiences are set to retire on September 17 th , 2026. We are working on additional guidance to help with migration of existing content ahead of classic LTI retirements, and more information will be available soon. Compliance and regulatory resources Visit the Microsoft Service Trust Portal to learn how Microsoft cloud services protect your data, and how you can manage cloud data security and compliance for your organization. You will find our latest HECVAT assessment along with other resources for Microsoft 365 LTI and all Microsoft apps and services. For more information, and to keep up with future product announcements Please visit the Microsoft Tech Community Education Blog and subscribe to keep up with whatâs new in Microsoft Education. We also hold bi-monthly office hours every first and third Thursday where lots of LMS + Microsoft 365 customers come to discuss scenarios and get assistance from peers, please join us. Microsoft 365 LTI Office Hours 1 st and 3 rd Thursday of each month at 11am EST Join link: https://aka.ms/LTIOfficeHours How to get help or send feedback For any issues deploying the integration, our Education Support team is here to help. Please visit https://aka.ms/EduSupport Once deployed, there are links to Contact Support and Send Feedback from right within the app. These can be found in the user voice menu in the upper right on any view that appears within the LMS. Learn more about Microsoft feedback for your organization. Learning Tools InteroperabilityÂŽ (LTIÂŽ) is a trademark of the 1EdTech Consortium, Inc. (1edtech.org) The word Moodle and associated Moodle logos are trademarks or registered trademarks of Moodle Pty Ltd or its related affiliates.
Microsoft Mesh Education Licensing
Microsoft Education and Product Teams, I am writing to advocate for the inclusion of Microsoft Mesh (Immersive Spaces and Events) within the Microsoft 365 Education SKU family (A1, A3, and A5). Currently, Mesh is available across nearly every commercial license family, from Teams Essentials to E5 Enterprise, but is explicitly excluded from Education tenants. As documented in several Learn Q&A threads and service plan manifests, the MESH_IMMERSIVE_FOR_TEAMS service plan is simply not provisioned for EDU customers. The current state is one of silent exclusion, creating several critical hurdles: Pedagogical: Immersive technology is one of the most requested features for remote and hybrid learning to combat "Zoom fatigue" and increase student engagement. Education is a high-value use case for 3D immersion. Parity: Universities and K-12 institutions on A5 licenses pay for "top-tier" features but are denied the innovative tools available to a "Business Basic" user. If you are a small business on a basic plan, you have Mesh. If you are a world-class University on A5, you are blocked. This isn't a "procurable" add-on; it is a licensing eligibility wall. Implementation: Current Microsoft guidance suggests schools move to Business or Enterprise licensing to access Mesh. This is not a viable solution for institutions with thousands of users, complex compliance requirements, and student-data privacy frameworks built specifically around EDU SKUs. We arenât asking for a discount; we are asking for eligibility. We urge the product team to: Add the Mesh Immersive service plan to the A3 and A5 EDU license entitlements. Provide a clear roadmap for when Education tenants can expect feature parity with Commercial tenants. Education should be the vanguard of immersive collaboration, not an afterthought. We would appreciate a formal update on when this licensing barrier will be removed.
Planner tab missing from Teams channel only shows as separate app
Our users can no longer open the Planner in the Teams channel; they can only access it via the app. This has been the case for a short while now. Does anyone know of a fix for this, or is this how itâs supposed to work? It cannot be selected via apps.Join Us at MVP Summit: Helping SMBs thrive through Teams
The Microsoft MVP Summit is just around the corner, and weâre excited to invite Microsoft MVPs to a Teams SMBâfocused conversation designed specifically for you on March 24th at 11 am PDT. The session is exclusive to MVP Summit attendees, and itâs intended for MVPs who work closely with small and medium businessesâor who are passionate about how Microsoft Teams continues to evolve for the SMB audience. Why should MVPs join this session? Engage directly with the Microsoft Teams product team focused on SMB. Share real-world insights and feedback from your customers and partners. Learn how weâre thinking about SMB-specific scenarios and where Teams is heading. Connect with fellow Microsoft MVPs who care deeply about Teams and SMB innovation Attending MVP Summit in person? If youâll be joining us in Redmond for the MVP Summit, weâd love to meet you face to face. Stop by to say hello, put names to faces, and have an informal, candid conversation with the team. These discussions are invaluable to usâand weâre always eager to hear whatâs working well and where we can do better. The MVP Summit is a unique, invitation-only forum for open, two-way dialogue, and this session is all about ensuring that the SMB voiceârepresented by Microsoft MVPsâcontinues to shape the future of Teams. Weâre looking forward to the conversation and hope to see you there. đ summit.microsoft.com
