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Jim Naroski: Welcome to the inaugural edition of the
Microsoft 365 Update. We’re changing the name from the
Office 365 Update to the Microsoft 365 Update, but we’re
not changing our goal of helping you get the most out of
Microsoft solutions for the Modern Workplace.
We’ll still be bringing you the latest news and announcements
and the emphasis will continue to be on Office 365 for the
foreseeable future. But we’ll also cover other components
of Microsoft 365, which in addition to Office 365 includes
Windows 10 and Enterprise Mobility and Security.
Now, onto the updates.
I covered Editor in Word in prior videos and it has also been
available in Outlook for a few months. Editor in PowerPoint
has arrived for Office Insiders and should soon be released
more broadly. The Editor leverages machine learning and
natural language processing to provide an intelligent
proofing and editing service that delivers recommendations
based on context. For example, Editor highlights and
provides suggestions to fix awkward word choices and incorrect
grammar. [screen shows the suggestion menu structure] It also offers guidance for improving clarity and conciseness.
[screen shows the clarity menu structure] To see if it is available in your
release of PowerPoint, select File, then Options, then
Proofing. Under "When correcting spelling and grammar in
PowerPoint", if you see the boxes for frequently confused
words and mark grammar errors as you type, then you’re
in business. [screen shows the menu structure]
Microsoft Forms is now integrated with PowerPoint for Office
365, providing a seamless way for speakers, trainers, and
educators to connect and interact with participants.
You can get real-time audience feedback via forms and
quizzes without asking them to leave PowerPoint.
To get started, simply select Forms from the Insert menu
and select between creating a new form or quiz or insert
one you’ve already created. [screen shows the forms menu structure]
There are occasions where I’m at a loss for words when
creating a document, like this script for example, and I
want to make note of a place to come back later after I’ve
thought about it for a bit. There are also times when I’d like
to collaborate with or get feedback from others during the
writing process to see is something sounds right. If you ever
face this situation, then hang on, help is on the way and it
is called Inline To-Do. If there is a place in your document
where you want to come back to it at a later time, just type
TODO and whatever notes you want, like "finish this section" or
"insert closing here" and Word recognizes and tracks these
entries as to-dos. [screen shows adding an Inline To-Do] When you come back to the document,
you’ll see a list of your remaining to-dos, and you can click
each one to navigate back to the right spot.
When you @mention someone within the to-do, Word emails
them a notification with a "deep link" to the relevant place in the
document. [screen shows adding an @mention Inline To-Do] Note that your document needs to be shared
on SharePoint or OneDrive for Business to get this to work.
This new capability is available in preview for Office Insiders
with availability for all Office 365 subscribers coming soon.
It’s amazing what can be done with a web browser today.
While I still prefer the native Outlook client running on
Windows, Outlook on the web continues to improve and meets
the requirements of many users.
Many Outlook desktop users know you can drag an email
onto the tasks icon and automatically create a task. And if you
didn’t know this, you do now. [screen shows dragging items to tasks and calendar]
Outlook on the Web now lets you create tasks the same way
by dragging and dropping an email into your Tasks pane.
You can also easily schedule tasks by dragging them from
the Tasks pane to your calendar. As a bonus, your tasks then
travel with you on the To-Do app on your mobile device. [screen shows tasks on a phone]
This new Tasks pane capability will start rolling out to
customers who opt in to the new Outlook on the web in
December of 2018.
As a transition from Skype for Business to Teams continues,
new functionality in the iOS and Android apps means that
users can stay connected with their team wherever they are.
Push notifications can help you stay in touch with your team
of course, but there are times when you might want to
focus on other things in your life, like your family or
watching this video. Quiet Hours enable you to mute
push notifications at specific times during any day of the
week, including weekends. [screen shows the Quiet Hours menu structure]
Needless to say, I enabled this functionality as soon as I
heard about it. In addition, the Teams mobile app now
allows you to schedule meetings. Just tap the meetings
icon and tap the "New event" button, fill out all the necessary
information and you’re all set. [screen shows Teams meeting menu structure] You can even search
for colleagues in the organization chart directly from your
mobile device. Open the menu at the top of the Teams app,
then tap Organization, and search for the person to see
where they reside in the org chart. [screen shows Organization search]
The same blog post that announced these mobile app
features also covered some great third-party enhancements
to the Teams experience and some new features for Teams
administrators. Be sure to check it out.
Microsoft and its partners continue to introduce new features
in the Power BI Desktop app at what can be best described as
a blistering pace. Through our new capabilities in reporting,
analytics, modeling, custom visuals, and data connectivity.
The list is way too long to cover in the time that we have,
so I’ll tell you about one that stood out for me. [screen shows a list of 17 items across Reporting, Analytics, Modeling, Custom visuals, and Data connectivity]
The ability to expand and collapse individual matrix row
headers is something I’ve been waiting for. It turns out that
I’m not the only one, as this has been one of the most
requested features in the Power BI virtual suggestion box.
There are two ways to expand and collapse Row headers.
The first is through the right-click menu. [screen shows Row headers menu structure] You’ll see options
to expand the specific row header you clicked on, the
entire level, or everything down to the very last level of the
hierarchy. You have similar options for collapsing row
headers as well. You can also add +/- icons
to the row headers through the formatting pane under the row
headers card. [screen shows formatting menu structure] Once enabled, the icons work like
the expand/collapse functionality in Excel PivotTables.
By default, the icons will match the formatting of the row
header, but you can also customize the icons’ colors and
size separately if you so desire. Be sure to check the
transcript and resources guide for information on where
you can go to learn more.
In the past if you needed to create configuration files needed
to deploy Office in large organizations, you would do so in
Notepad or another text editor. The Office Customization Tool
now generally available at config.office.com makes this part
of the deployment process easier and less likely to introduce
errors.
The files created give administrators more control over an
Office installation, like which products are installed, the
update channel to use, which languages to deploy, and more.
[screen shows the tool options] After creating the configuration files, they can be
used with the Office Deployment tool to deploy a customized
version of Office. For information, see the Office
Customization Tool blog post and documentation or watch
the Microsoft Mechanics video I link to in the transcript
and resources guide.
While researching topics for this video, I came across a
handy poster that does a nice job of describing Microsoft 365,
the licensing plans and their capabilities, usage cases and
scenarios, and the adoption roadmap and options. [screen shows the poster]
The poster is part of the Microsoft 365 Enterprise deployment
documentation and resources content available at
aka.ms/M365edeploy. I, for one, plan on posting this on my
wall, and if you’re a Microsoft 365 Enterprise IT professional,
I hope you do as well.
That’s it for this month. Remember, you can download the
transcript and resources document that accompanies this
video at the URL you see on the screen.
I’m Jim Naroski. Thanks for watching and I’ll see you again
soon.
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