Microsoft 365 Updates for the Week of April 27th.
Joel Rollins

Microsoft 365 Updates for the Week of April 27th.

Hello WolfPack.  This week, the majority of updates are related to SharePoint and the Microsoft 365 Admin center.  Odd not to have any Teams updates this week, but I'm sure that will change come next week.


New and updated usage reports in Microsoft 365 admin center
Microsoft has added a new usage card in the reports home page that shows remote work.  The new card provided quick access to a series of reports that can help you see changes in the use of apps that imply remote working.
 

Microsoft is also adding a report on Microsoft 365 Apps usage and adding a new graph to the Office 365 active users report to show total activity across the services.  The email report has also been updated to include calendar event activities.
Microsoft 365 Apps usage report
 

Activity graph in Office 365 active users report
 

Activity graph in Office 365 active users report
 
 
 
New Feature: SharePoint stock images
Stick images tab in the file picker will soon give users access to thousands of high-resolution stock images to use while creating pages and news.
User with permission to author pages will see a new option, Stock images, when they are adding an image to a modern SharePoint page.


Look for this new feature to be available to Targeted release customers from mid-April to the end of April
Standard Release customers can expect to see this feature appear at the beginning of May to mid-May
 
New Feature: Global reader experience in SharePoint admin center
Microsoft is introducing a new role named Global Reader.  You can consider this role as a companion role to the Global Admin role.  Here are the circumstances for using this new role:
  • Assign the global reader role instead of the global admin role to users who need to view all your organization’s settings but not edit them. For example, to plan, audit, or investigate.
  • Use the global reader role in combination with other limited admin roles like the SharePoint admin role to allow specialists to perform admin tasks.
 
New Feature: New rich-text editor for text fields with SharePoint lists
Users can enable the RTE on any multi-line field. Once the user enables RTE, the Notes field will display a pencil icon in the list form. Click the pencil to edit text and adjust appearance, such as font, size, color, highlight, bold, italics, underline, and bulleted or numbered lists.



Targeted release customers can expect a gradual rollout from mid-April to the beginning of May.
Standard release customers can expect to see this feature in mid-May to mid-August.
 
Awareness of Microsoft 365 Temporary Feature Adjustment - Update:
OneDrive
  • Customers who use OneDrive Files On-Demand and choose to "display items by using large thumbnails" in Windows Explorer or Mac Finder will see generic icons instead of thumbnails for a subset of file types, such as PDF and video files. Photo file thumbnails (jpeg, jpg, png, etc) are not affected by this change.
 
SharePoint
  • Updated (in bold) to provide additional clarity: Microsoft is rescheduling specific backend operations to regional evening and weekend business hours. Impacted capabilities include migration, DLP, apps that scan the service, and delays in file management after uploading a new file, video or image.
 
Previously announced:
 
OneNote
  • OneNote in Teams will be read-only for commercial and education tenants. To edit, please use OneNote for the web or the OneNote desktop app.
  • Download size and sync frequency of file attachments has been changed.
  • You can find details on these and other OneNote related updates as http://aka.ms/notesupdates
SharePoint
  • We are rescheduling specific backend operations to regional evening and weekend business hours. Impacted capabilities include migration, DLP and delays in file management after uploading a new file, video or image.
  • Reduced video resolution for playback videos.
  • The following blog is now available with some additional information about these temporary changes: Awareness of temporary adjustments in SharePoint Online
Teams
  • Frequency of Presence checking.
  • Interval we show when the other party is typing.
  • Reduced video resolution.
Stream
  • People timeline has been disabled for newly uploaded videos. Pre-existing videos will not be impacted.
  • Meeting recording video resolution adjusted to 720p
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