Welcome to this month's update.
In the next few minutes I'll be giving you a quick rundown of the latest new features and enhancements to Microsoft 365,
with the goal of helping you get the most out of the service.
Before I get started, consider hitting pause and opening the companion transcript and resources guide available at the URL listed
on the screen.
It includes the complete transcript and links to sources I used to create this video,
a list of roadmap-related resources, and a reference of direct YouTube links to topics from past videos.
Now, onto the updates.
We're expanding Microsoft Teams capabilities to foster improved communication and collaboration.
While these changes benefit all users, this new functionality is particularly applicable to those sometimes known as Firstline Workers.
They're the two billion plus people in service- or task-oriented roles in industries like retail, hospitality, travel and manufacturing.
With Shifts, a new app now available in Teams, managers can easily plan, create and adjust their team's schedules.
Then their team members can update their availability, review schedules, and request time off.
Shifts replaces much of the functionality in Microsoft StaffHub, which is scheduled to be retired in October of 2019.
People use Microsoft Teams differently. Some access private chats, meetings, and calls more frequently,
others may access the teams and channels capabilities more often.
With the new customizable navigation experience Teams users on mobile devices,
including Firstline Workers, can edit their navigation menu to have the features most important to them at their fingertips,
including the new Shifts app.
And, more mobile functionality is coming soon,
such as the ability to share location info and record audio messages.
Finally, most everybody likes to receive a proverbial pat on the back every once in a while,
and the Praise tool coming to Teams makes it easier to recognize the great work of others.
There will be a bunch of badges to choose from
and praise will appear where the whole team can see how others value your contribution.
Microsoft Teams administrators should take comfort in knowing they'll be able to configure the
level of flexibility their users enjoy and the apps they have available to them.
I provide links that should address those and related concerns in the transcript and resources guide.
Do you ever receive an email or walk into a meeting and realize that
you don't know much about the people you're about to collaborate with?
Now, you can simply hover over a contact's name in Outlook on the web and see information from their LinkedIn profile,
such as where they work, what their interests are or what connections you share.
These details help you better understand who that person is so you can start the relationship on the right foot,
even when you're outside your organization.
What about the scenario where you start to send an email to one of your LinkedIn connections,
only to find that their email address isn't stored in your Outlook contacts?
Now Outlook on the web can display both your Outlook contacts, and your first-degree LinkedIn connections when addressing emails.
Just start typing their name, and Outlook does the rest.
By virtue of you watching this, my guess is you find video to be a good way to acquire information.
But video can have limitations when it comes to learning.
For example, what if one of my desired outcomes for the content I create is to assess whether my audience
remembers the details of the topic I just covered?
If this video were hosted on Microsoft Stream, I'd be able to seamlessly
add quizzes, surveys, and polling right into the video
using the newly announced integration with Microsoft Forms.
I could then use the results help measure and then improve the effectiveness my training.
In short, Forms integration into Stream can help make learning more impactful.
While we are on the topic, I want to let iOS users know that the Stream app for iOS
has joined Stream for Android to round out our mobile platform story.
Once again, see the transcript and resources guide links for more info.
Video can make just about anything more interesting and PowerPoint presentations are no exception.
The ability to insert or embed video files from a local computer, a server, or services like YouTube,
Vimeo and SlideShare into PowerPoint has been around for years.
I'm pleased to report that Microsoft Steam is joining the list of video services that can be used to embed video content into PowerPoint.
This expands the options for organizations and users wanting to leverage rich video content in their presentations.
Web parts are the building blocks used to construct engaging SharePoint pages and sites.
Joining the very long list of already available web parts is Yammer conversations.
You can include conversations from any Yammer group, topic,
user or home feed onto just about any SharePoint page, news article, or site.
This isn't just a static or read-only copy of the Yammer content,
this is fully interactive, and it even takes on the appearance of the SharePoint page it's rendered on.
This new web part complements the previously available Yammer Highlights web part
and is currently rolling out, first to Targeted Release customers,
and later to those organizations that have opted for the Standard Release cadence.
The links provided in the resources document contain guidance on determining which Yammer web part is available to you at this time
and when you should use the Highlights or the Conversations web parts.
I've also included information on some other new web parts including a countdown timer and one for embedding YouTube videos
which I'm sure you'll find interesting.
With last year's enactment of the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, or GDPR,
and recent news stories concerning data privacy,
attitudes are shifting as people and organization become more aware of the personal data they are sharing.
New information protection and compliance capabilities in the Microsoft cloud help organizations with their privacy and compliance
commitments in a simple, integrated and intelligent way.
These include the new Microsoft 365 Compliance center, additional eDiscovery capabilities,
enhancements to the Supervision service in Advanced Data Governance, and more.
The Microsoft 365 Compliance Center is a specialized workspace that helps compliance and privacy professionals
simplify risk assessments, efficiently protect data and intelligently respond to regulatory requests.
Along with new compliance center, we're adding functionality our eDiscovery offering
including custodian communication management, case-related content isolation,
and built-in review and redact functionality in Advanced eDiscovery.
The Supervision capability in Microsoft 365 Advanced Data Governance adds Microsoft Teams content
and leverages a new built-in Review process to streamline and simplify employee communications reviews.
I encourage you to check out the transcript and resources guide to learn more about these
and other security and compliance news I didn't have a chance to cover.
I'd like to spend a couple minutes updating you on some topics that we covered in previous updates.
I talked about Files On-Demand for Mac when it became available for Office Insiders
and I'm happy to report it has joined the Windows version of Files On-Demand in reaching general availability.
OneDrive Files On-Demand makes it easy to have access to all your files but have only the files you need on the device,
minimizing the amount of local storage used.
The rest of your files stay securely stored in the cloud,
but available with the a few clicks of the mouse.
It's great for all kinds of scenarios like for those of you that travel a lot, use multiple computers,
work with large files but have limited local storage, or do all of the above, like your presenter.
The SharePoint Migration Tool was a topic in the November 2018 Office 365 update when it was made available for preview.
I'm pleased to announce the general availability of the tool,
which along with the SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool accelerate your journey to Microsoft 365.
This free solution migrates content from on-premises SharePoint sites and file shares to SharePoint Online or OneDrive in Office 365.
That's it for this month. Remember, to get the most out of this update,
be sure to check out the transcript and resources guide I mentioned at the beginning of this video
and which is located at aka.ms/m365update-blog.
I'm Jim Naroski, thanks for watching, and I'll see you again soon!