Microsoft 365 Updates for the Week of June 1st
Joel Rollins

Microsoft 365 Updates for the Week of June 1st

Heads-up WolfPack, lots of cloud service related news this week.  Read on for all the details!

Updated Feature: OneDrive and OneDrive for Business file upload limits
Microsoft has increased OneDrive file size limits to 100GB.  This is not just for Office files, but any file.
Also included in this announcement is the arrival of differential sync.  This will allow you to sync only parts of the file that have been changed. This can be especially useful for situations where you could be editing a photo or video.  Microsoft says this will also make the file sync times faster and reduce the time files need to upload, as well as its overall consumed bandwidth.

 
New Feature: Office 365 ProPlus is now Microsoft 365 Apps
New name, same price and no change in subscription.
So, why was the subscription name changed?  Microsoft renamed Office 365 ProPlus along with the following subscriptions to better reflect the current range of features and benefits in each package:
  • Office 365 Business Essentials becomes Microsoft 365 Business Basic
  • Office 365 Business Premium becomes Microsoft 365 Business Standard
  • Microsoft 365 Business becomes Microsoft 365 Business Premium
  • Office 365 Business becomes Microsoft 365 Apps for business
  • Office 365 ProPlus becomes Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise
As mentioned above, there are no price changes and the same apps and services are available.
 
 
Announced Feature Update: Teams 7x7 video
With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, Microsoft has been listening to feedback as to what options users want for their favorite video conferencing platform.
Microsoft recently updated Teams (and Skype) to support 3x3 video on screen at once.  Now, in a recent interview with Jared Spataro, CVP of Microsoft 365, gave the news to the Wall Street Journal that Teams will match Zoom’s ability to show up to 49 participants (7x7) at a time.  Microsoft has yet to set a timeframe for when M365 clients can expect this update.

 
New Feature: Create an organization assets library
Microsoft introduced the capability to create an organization assets library.  This new feature I great for organizations that need or require the ability to store and manage a central location for Office templates and images.
Microsoft 365 administrators can create two types of organization asset libraries:
  • Image library for photos and logos.  When a user adds a web part to any modern page in SharePoint and that web part opens the file picker, the user can select “Your organization” in the left pane to browse the libraries you’ve specified. 
  •  
  •  
  • Office templates. When a user selects to create a new Office file (from Office.com or the Word, Excel, or PowerPoint desktop app), the user can select the tab for your organization to see the templates. (To use this feature on Office.com, users need to be assigned a license to Office 365 E3 or E5.
 
 
 
New Migration Features: 1 new and 2 updated tools
Microsoft has now rolled out Migration Manager – part of the SharePoint admin center – for commercial & government cloud customers.   The tool is designed to handle large-scale migrations.  Admins can add and manage multiple agents to centrally coordinate all migration activities.

 
Migration Manager lets you migrate your on-premises file share content to Microsoft 365. Through a simple interface within the SharePoint admin center, admins can manage thousands of migration tasks across multiple machines.
 

 
Microsoft has also updated the SharePoint Migration Tool to add support for migrating content to Microsoft Teams.

 
Recent and additional SPMT updates:
  • SharePoint Server 2016 support (public preview) | You can now have SharePoint Server 2016 as the source environment to move content into Microsoft 365.
  • Simpler OneDrive migration using user account | Simply enter the email address of the user that you want to migrate content into or continue using the URL.
  • Smart URL handling to reduce SharePoint migration complexity | We have improved the tool to make it easier to copy and paste a SharePoint URL. You no longer need to truncate the URL to paste it in to the tool.
  • One-click reporting for issues and to provide feedback
A recent Microsoft acquisition, Mover, has also been integrated into the SharePoint admin center.  This tool is used when customers need to move files from cloud to cloud.

 
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
Print
1032