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Hello everyone, it's Matt
and welcome to April's Roadmap Radar.
I've been rummaging through the Microsoft 365 roadmap
and picked out some of the choice updates so I can share them with you
and as usual this month, there's a lot of love for Teams
and new updates and features for Sharepoint, Word, Outlook, Forms and Whiteboard.
So let's not waste any time and get into it.
In last month's Radar we talked about the new insights app coming to Teams.
The app rollout should be finished by the end of this month
and when it's there, you can get to it from the ellipsis on the left hand rail.
Updates are already starting to roll out
like the new home page that helps you focus on your well-being
and then by June we'll see other features like Virtual Commute
which will help you wrap up the end of your day, prepare for the next,
and disconnect from work.
There'll be a Praise feature that will allow you to send kudos to your peers
and lastly, there's another feature that we don't know much about called Reflect
and there's even more updates planned for later this year
including the guided meditations from Headspace that Microsoft talked about at Ignite.
Microsoft have been promising an update
to improve the file sharing experience in Teams
that will bring it into line with SharePoint and OneDrive and the other apps like Word.
So this update was delayed,
but when it does arrive we'll see a share button
and we'll be able to choose who to share with and what access they can have,
then you can either copy the link or send a message with the link already in it.
So this update is rolling out now
and should be complete by the end of April.
Scheduled Teams meetings will now have a recap feature.
When a meeting has ended,
just go back to the Teams calendar app and open the Teams meeting again.
You'll see the attendance list, the meeting recording and the transcript all in one place.
This is especially useful for anyone who couldn't attend the meeting.
This won't be available for meetings started in the channel
and this rollout should be complete by the end of April.
Up until now, pressing the "meet now" button on the calendar app has started your meeting,
but now it will also create a link that you can share in an email or chat.
You'll also be able to configure the meeting options from a link too.
This feature is rolling out to the Teams desktop apps and on the web in April.
The Reactions feature allows you to react to participants during a meeting.
In a Teams meeting we can choose four different reaction types:
applause, like, heart and laugh.
And we can send it to meeting attendees from the new reactions button...
...on the control bar at the top of the meeting window.
We'll also see the reaction displayed over our position on the meeting stage.
Reactions will be available on Teams desktop and Teams mobile apps by the end of April.
Viva Connections for Teams is now available,
putting your intranet site right into the Teams desktop app.
Admins will need to configure the Connections app with a Powershell script
and I'm going to do a video on that soon.
Then the icon that's pinned to the left hand rail of Teams can be customised...
to show your own company or organisation's logo
and then you can use your SharePoint home site right out of Teams.
A new option is coming to stop participants sharing their video during a meeting.
Organisers and presenters will be able to turn off attendees cameras
just like they can with their mics.
This can be set before or during the meeting
for everyone at once from the usual meeting options page
and we'll be able to disable cameras for individuals during the meeting as well.
This update is rolling out now and will be complete by the end of April.
When choosing who can bypass the lobby, we can now select "people in my organisation".
This means that any guests from outside of your organisation...
...will have to wait in the lobby to be admitted.
The rollout of this feature began in March and should be complete by the end of April.
If you're using Teams with your Safari browser,
you'll now be able to share your video during meetings
which you couldn't do before.
This update requires Safari 14 or above
and should be available to everyone now.
Good news for Mac users now
who were previously unable to share their computer sound
when presenting movie clips or presentations with sound in a Teams meeting.
This update will fix the issue
so Mac users can now present their media with sound as well as visuals.
This rollout should be complete by the end of April.
Updates are coming to the way we manage large numbers of people in our Teams meetings.
In the participant list or roster we'll see a list of the first 20 people in the meeting
and then there'll be an option to drill in to see more.
Presenters will be able to see who's in the meeting lobby
and choose whether to admit them one by one or all at the same time.
So this update is being rolled out to Teams desktop
and on the web throughout April.
New page analytics are being rolled into SharePoint.
This is great for understanding what type of engagement we're getting
from the pages and the news posts that we create.
We'll see the number of viewers on all SharePoint pages and posts
and how users interact with them.
There'll be charts for viewers, views and the average time spent per person.
These updates should be available to everyone by the end of April.
Someone asked me about this in the comments recently so I thought I'd include it.
The SharePoint app bar was promoted during the last Ignite
and was going to add a common app toolbar
or what Microsoft called Global Navigation to the left-hand side of SharePoint.
It was going to give us easy access to things like the home site and other SharePoint resources.
I never had it in any of my tenants
but I did see it in one or two of my customers',
so it looks like it may have been rolled out to some, and then recalled.
Anyway, Microsoft say that they want to make changes to it before they release,
but aren't sharing any new dates.
A new commenting experience has been rolled out to Word for Windows.
Now when we comment on a Word document
we'll be able to add @mentions to get the attention of specific people.
When people are mentioned in a comment now,
they'll be alerted by email and can respond from there
and if you @mention someone who doesn't have access to the file already
it will prompt you to share it with them.
There will be a comments button at the top right corner of Word
that will let you switch on the comments panel
and eventually comments will work this way across all the office apps like PowerPoint and Excel.
This update is rolling out now and should be complete in June.
Microsoft are adding a "meet now" feature to Outlook for Windows.
We'll start to see the "meet now" button in the Outlook calendar app
and pressing that will start a new Teams meeting.
This feature is rolling out now.
Also for Outlook, it's being updated so you can share emails with Teams channels.
You'll see a "share to Teams" button on the ribbon of every email
and that will share emails to people, channels and groups in Teams.
The email will appear in the post section of the channel
or the chat app if you share it with an individual.
Once the email is in Teams you can react to it with emojis
and you can start a conversation or open it up or download it just like a normal file.
This update rolled out in March and should be available to everyone now.
There are some new features coming to forms when you use them as polls in Teams meetings.
First, anonymous participants, or people who've joined your meeting without signing in...
...will be able to vote in any polls that the presenter shares.
Previously they had to use the Teams chat app to vote
but now they can vote just like anybody else.
This works on Teams desktop on the web and on mobile.
And the second update is for mobile users.
Now they'll be able to create and share polls during the meeting from their phone.
The rollout of these features should be complete by the end of April.
And finally now we can create and share Whiteboards on the most popular mobile platform: Android.
With Whiteboard for Android we can draw or write naturally with ink in real time
and share and collaborate with our teammates.
Microsoft Whiteboard is available for Android from the Google Play store now.
Okay so that's this month's Radar.
Thank you for sticking with me to the end and I'll see you next time.
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