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Sunday, October 1, 2023

Friends of Microsoft Teams - Week 39 - 2023 (September 25 - October 1)

Hello Friend of Microsoft Teams,

Find below a list of public posts and updates on Microsoft Teams (and Microsoft 365) that have been published in Week 39 of 2023, September 25 – October 1.

Feel free to share with your partners, customers, colleagues, and peers.

 

What's New in Microsoft Teams (and Microsoft 365):

Field Advisories:

Community:

 

M365 Message Center :

 

 

  • Teams :

 

Avatars: Hardware Requirements and Service Plan Update MC678301 · Published Sep 29, 2023

You will soon see a new service plan associated with your Microsoft 365 or Office 365 license: Avatars for Teams (MESH_AVATARS_FOR_TEAMS).

Avatars for Teams app is also updating the minimum hardware requirements to access this feature. The new minimum specified hardware requirement is a two core CPU with 6gb RAM. Users will not be able to utilize this feature if it does not meet the minimum hardware spec. This change is due to be able to provide users with a better Avatars for Teams experience.

Rollout for the service plan will begin in early November and is expected to be complete by late November.

 

Microsoft Teams Live Event Retirement MC678003 · Published Sep 28, 2023

With the introduction of Town halls in Microsoft Teams, Teams Live Events will be retired for commercial customers on September 30, 2024. This provides commercial customers with a 12-month window to prepare for the retirement and transition off Teams Live Events.

September 30, 2024

 

Introducing Microsoft Teams Town hall MC678002 · Published Sep 28, 2023

To simplify the virtual event experience on Teams, we are integrating our live event capabilities into our Teams meeting experience. This will create a unified experience for users whether they are hosting a small meeting, customer-facing webinar, or company-wide town hall. As a part of this integration, we are introducing Town halls in Microsoft Teams, a new experience to host and deliver large-scale, internal events to create connections across an organization. Town halls will provide a one-to-many format with advanced production capabilities and a structured approach for attendee engagement. With town halls, customers can host various types of internal as well as external events including company-wide town halls, all hands, global team meetings, internal broadcasts, fireside chats, and more.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 123148

Standard Release (if applicable): We will begin rolling out early October 2023 and expect to complete early October 2023

 

Immersive spaces available soon for Public Preview MC677830 · Published Sep 27, 2023

We are bringing the power of Microsoft Mesh right into the flow of work – making it easier for Teams users to transform their meetings into a 3D experience. With just one click, you can now easily have fun and connect with your team in an immersive space. From your Teams meeting view menu, you will now see an immersive space option. Once you are in the space, choose from one of our 3D environments and experience Spatial Audio, which allows for multiple simultaneous conversations and effective communication without talking over each other. Play interactive games built for team-bonding and explore different ice breaker activities. Express yourself with live reactions to engage with others during discussions. Bring your team together, from any physical location, with a PC or Meta Quest VR devices.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 161720.

Public Preview: We will begin rolling out in October 2023.

 

(Updated) Web links from Microsoft Teams chats to open in Microsoft Edge; Teams chat will open side-by-side with link MC669480 · Published Aug 21, 2023 · Last updated Sep 27, 2023

Update for September 27, 2023: This Microsoft Teams change has started rolling out to Targeted Release. Standard commercial rollout will start in early November 2023 (previously late September) and is expected to be completed by late November.

The Microsoft Teams desktop app for Windows will open web links from Teams chats in Microsoft Edge to enable a new web and chat side-by-side experience.

By opening web links in Edge, users will be able to see those links side-by-side with their Teams chats—web links will open as new browser tabs and the Teams chats will open next to them in the Edge sidebar. This new, single-view Teams experience in Edge is designed to minimize switching between windows and to help users stay in the flow of work while referencing web links.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 126334.

This change to use Edge to open web links from Teams chats follows a similar, previously announced change in the Outlook for Windows app. Customers impacted by this change in Outlook were notified via MC541626, MC545904, or MC548092.

Admin controls are available as detailed below.

Read more about how we’re optimizing the experience between Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Edge:

Notes:

  • This change does not affect a device’s default browser setting in Windows.
  • This only affects commercial users signed into Teams with Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) accounts.
  • The policy described in the following section configures which browser is used to open web links for both Teams (chat) and the Outlook for Windows app (email), or, if you did not receive an Outlook for Windows app Message center notification, this policy will only apply to Teams (chat).

 

(Updated) Webinar Email feature updates -customize content and time to send reminders MC549348 · Published May 2, 2023 · Last updated Sep 27, 2023

Updated September 27, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Emails for Webinars are critical to engage with registrants and often organizers feel the need to customize the content. To enable this, we are rolling out two features.

  1. The content of the emails (i.e. all webinar related attendee emails) can be edited by the event organizers. This is reserved for Teams Premium licensed organizers.
  2. Time to send reminder emails can be configured by the event organizers. This is reserved for Teams Premium licensed organizers.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 119391

Standard Release: rollout will start in mid-July and expected to be completed by end of July.

GCC: rollout will start in mid-October and expected to be completed by late October.

 

(Updated) Quick Access Teams and Sharepoint Document Libraries in win32 backstage MC432475 · Published Sep 16, 2022 · Last updated Sep 27, 2023

Updated September 27, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Currently, users experience some frustration when using Office products because of all different routes that they must use to access all their content. The Quick Access feature will allow users to access shared libraries from both their SharePoint and Teams locations. When the user opens files from shared libraries, these libraries will show up in the form of a list which will encourage users to save and open files to these libraries with ease. This helps deliver a more consistent, coherent storage location experience across M365 apps. This new backstage experience won’t show up in Teams, SharePoint, or OneDrive but does include storage locations from OneDrive and Teams (sites/channels) which are stored on SharePoint.

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out late June 2023 (previously late April) and expect to complete by late July 2023 (previously late May).

Standard Release: We will begin rolling out late July 2023 (previously mid-July) and expect to complete by late October 2023 (previously early September).

 

(Updated) Microsoft Teams: Emojis, GIFs and Stickers Unified in One Picker MC674737 · Published Sep 11, 2023 · Last updated Sep 27, 2023

Updated September 27, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Users can soon find all of their emojis, GIFs, and stickers in a combined picker in Microsoft Teams.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 84023

Standard Release: We will begin rolling out in early November 2023 (previously early October) and expect to complete rollout by late November 2023.

Gov Clouds: We will begin rolling out in early December 2023 and expect to complete rollout by late January 2024.

 

(Updated) Workflows replacing Connectors within Microsoft Teams channels menu MC670029 · Published Aug 23, 2023 · Last updated Sep 27, 2023

Updated September 27, 2023: We want to clarify that this feature will only be available within the New Teams client. Thank you for your patience.

Microsoft Teams will be bringing workflows powered by Power Automate into the overflow menu for channels and replacing the Connectors option within the menu.

To make sure Microsoft Teams provides the best workflow experience for our users we are making it easier to configure workflows for channels. From the list of channels users will be able to go into the overflow menu for a specific channel (...) and select "Workflows". Here they will see a list of workflow templates specific to channels within Teams. Users can then configure these templates to their needs and deploy them to the channel.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 131293

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out mid-October 2023 (previously late August) and expect to complete by late October 2023 (previously mid-September).

Standard Release: We will begin rolling out late October 2023 (previously mid-September) and expect to complete by mid-November 2023 (previously late September).

 

Logo update for the Tasks by Planner and To Do app in Microsoft Teams MC677234 · Published Sep 25, 2023

We are updating the app icon and logo associated with the “Tasks by Planner and To Do app” in Microsoft Teams.

Standard Release: We will begin rolling out mid-September and expect to complete by late September.

 

 

  • Microsoft 365/Viva :

 

 

 

(Updated) Microsoft Viva: Use of Viva Topics in Viva Engage Grants Visibility of Topic Names MC661222 · Published Jul 26, 2023 · Last updated Sep 27, 2023

Updated September 27, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

In January, we announced the General Availability of Viva Topics in Viva Engage (Yammer) to customers. As part of the Viva Engage topics transition to Viva Topics, posts in Viva Engage (conversations, questions, polls, announcements, storyline posts) will be considered as Viva Topic resources. As a result, all users with access to posts in Viva Engage will be able to see the topic names applied to those posts in Engage as well as in other Viva Topics experiences in Microsoft 365 (e.g., Topic cards and pages).

Migrating Viva Engage to use Viva Topics supports a consistent topics experience in Microsoft 365 and allows for community-sourced knowledge to be accessible across an organization. For organizations not using premium Viva Topics experiences, the use of topics in Viva Engage will appear the same before and after topic migration. For organizations using Viva Topics, you will gain the premium benefits, such as topic cards in Yammer (Viva Engage), Viva topic pages, and centralized topic management.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 148465

Rollout will begin in mid-September 2023 (previously late August) and will continue to roll out to all Viva Engage networks by mid-October 2023 (previously late September).

 

(Updated) REMINDER: Upcoming Changes to Customization Controls in Viva Pulse In-App Experience MC671812 · Published Aug 29, 2023 · Last updated Sep 27, 2023

Updated September 27, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Currently, there are two customization controls in the Viva Pulse In-App Admin Experience. The ‘Stock Questions’ control allows employees to edit stock questions. The ‘New questions’ control allows employees to create their own questions. In the upcoming release, we will be merging the two controls into one customization control.

This one control, when turned ON, will allow employees to edit stock questions and add their own questions in the Pulse survey. All customization capabilities will be turned ON when this control is ON, and all customization capabilities will be turned OFF when this control is OFF. 

Rollout will begin in mid-September 2023 and is expected to be fully rolled out by late October 2023 (previously late September).

 

Native mode migration update MC674420 · Published Sep 8, 2023

Eligible Viva Engage (Yammer) networks are being automatically upgraded to native mode. If you have already received an approved exemption, that exemption is still valid for the approved date. No further exemptions are being granted.

Due to the high volume of migrations, the completion time for some automatic and self-service migrations may be longer than expected. Once notified about automatic migration, no action is required.

You may still initiate a self-service migration, if a Message Center post has not been received announcing that the network has been scheduled for automatic migration. Once you start the self-service migration, no further action is required unless specific errors are displayed.

The automatic migration of networks to native mode started on December 1, 2022. Automatic migrations are expected to continue through October 2023.

We recommend that you initiate self-service migration on your own by visiting the Microsoft 365 Native Mode page within the Network Admin pages of Viva Engage (Yammer). Once the message center post has been sent for automatic migration, admins are unable to perform self-service migration.

 

Adding Apps to Yammer/Viva Engage communities via Microsoft 365 Connectors is no longer supported MC663621 · Published Jul 31, 2023

Starting September 11, 2023, adding Microsoft 365 Apps to Yammer/Viva Engage communities via Microsoft 365 connectors will no longer be supported.  This functionality was limited to classic Yammer only and was not implemented in new Yammer.

If you have any connectors added to your existing communities, they will stop working on September 11, 2023.

Users and administrators will no longer receive updates in communities from previously configured connectors.

There is no message loss expected - all past connector card messages will default to regular system messages.

Users and administrators will not be able to add new connectors to the communities in their network.

 

(Updated) Use Microsoft Teams to produce Yammer Live Events MC513603 · Published Feb 9, 2023

Updated August 30, 2023: We have updated the content below with additional information.

This is an important message for customers who use Stream to host live events in Viva Engage.

We’re informing you of changes to the Message Center Post MC513603 titled “Use Microsoft Teams to produce Yammer live events”. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 82054 and was originally sent on February 9, 2023 and stated that Stream Live Events would retire on September 15, 2023. Microsoft has moved the retirement date of the Stream Live Events service from September 15, 2023, to January 30, 2024. Microsoft Teams live events, with encoder support is your new platform to host and run live events.

Teams live events with encoder support is the replacement service to Stream live events. Teams live events allows you to create, host and produce live events with the same functionality that you get with Stream. It also supports Real-Time Messaging Protocol (RTMP) input, which lets you create highly polished events that feature combined live streams, screen overlays, on-screen data and more.

You will be able to use Stream live events in Viva Engage until January 30, 2024, and after that live events must be produced using Teams live events. In January 2023, the Stream options to produce live events will be removed from Viva Engage.

Just like with Stream live events, there are two ways in which you can use Teams live events to produce events in Viva Engage:

  1. Microsoft Teams QuickStart: Use the Microsoft Teams desktop client to produce your event, generally used in producing simple events.
  2. Microsoft Teams external app or device: Use this to produce large-scale events, such an executive town hall, where a single stream from a media mixer is broadcast to an audience.

Once the live event is completed, the video, if recorded, is stored in the SharePoint library of the community where the event was produced.

The Stream live events options will be removed from your tenant on January 30, 2024.

Viva Engage Community Managers will only be able to create live events only using the new Teams options. The Stream live events options will be removed.

 

(Updated) General Availability of Viva Topics for Yammer MC494737 · Published Jan 5, 2023 · Last updated Sep 27, 2023

Updated July 28, 2023: We have updated the rollout timing below. Thank you for your patience.

We are announcing the General Availability of Viva Topics for our Yammer customers.

The General Availability of Viva Topics for Yammer experiences enables us to leverage a more robust and secure infrastructure for Topics. It also enables organizations to use these Topics outside of Yammer (for example, Topics can be tagged in Teams chats or in Outlook messages).

If you would like to learn more about the benefits of Viva Topics, click here.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 72184

Standard Release: We began rolling out in late March (previously early May) and expect to complete by late October 2023 (previously mid-July).

 

Multiple Yammer Networks Within Single Tenant No Longer Supported (1:Many Mode) MC454504 · Published Oct 31, 2022

Yammer is committed to strengthening the alignment of Yammer to Microsoft 365. This means we will no longer support tenants having more than one non-external Yammer network. This change will ensure Yammer networks have the same organizational boundaries as their corresponding Microsoft 365 tenants.

Why is this happening now?

Integrating Yammer more fully into the Microsoft 365 ecosystem has been a multi-year effort. New 1:many configurations have not been permitted since October 2018. All new Yammer networks provisioned after January 2020 have been created in Native Mode. In September 2022, the enforcement of Native Mode was announced. Automated network consolidation is an important prerequisite to reaching Native Mode and gaining access to broader safety, security, and compliance features.

Starting on May 1, 2023 and continuing through May 1, 2024. You are welcome to initiate network consolidation on your own at any time before or after May 1, 2023.

Non-Native and Hybrid Yammer Networks are being upgraded MC424414 · Published Sep 1, 2022

Non-Native and Hybrid Yammer Networks will be upgraded to Native Mode to allow users, groups, and content to be compatible with and mapped to their counterparts in Azure Active Directory and Microsoft 365. Native Mode also provides other benefits, such as the ability to host Live Events in every Yammer community and simplify file administration through SharePoint. Most critically, Native Mode supports eDiscovery through the Microsoft Purview compliance portal, allowing your organization to collaborate safely and securely within your Yammer network. 90% of Yammer networks are in Native Mode today, including our top 10 largest networks.

We will begin migrating networks on December 01, 2022 and continue the upgrades through October 2023. The process will begin with smaller networks. If you prefer to control the timing of your upgrade, you may initiate the process on your own at any time by visiting the Microsoft 365 Native Mode page within the Network Admin pages of Yammer.


Viva Pulse Customization Control Migration MC677516 · Published Sep 26, 2023

The customization control in the Viva Pulse Admin Experience will soon be managed through centralized feature access management in Viva through PowerShell. This customization control provides admins the ability to turn on or off customization capabilities for survey authors to add their own questions to existing stock templates or edit existing stock questions. With centralized feature access management, admins can configure access at the tenant level, group level (using AAD groups or M365 Groups), or at the user level, for maximum flexibility.

These changes are expected to be completed by the end of October 2023.

Viva Pulse – Teams Chat Notifications MC677515 · Published Sep 26, 2023

In addition to the currently enabled email notifications, Viva Pulse will begin to send notifications through Teams Chat. Users will only receive Teams Chat notifications if they have the Viva Pulse Teams app installed. As the admin, you can either 1) install the Viva Pulse Teams app on users in your tenant through a Teams app setup policy or 2) please encourage users to visit the Teams app store to download the Viva Pulse Teams app to ensure users can receive the Teams Chat notifications.

Through the Viva Pulse chatbot, Teams Chat notifications will be sent for the following scenarios:

  1. Welcome message when 1) the tenant admin installs the Viva Pulse app on users in the tenant and 2) the user installs the Viva Pulse app from the Teams app store.
  2. The feedback author creates a Pulse request.
  3. The feedback author shares a Pulse report.
  4. The feedback author’s Pulse is closed.

In early October, when feedback providers receive the Teams Chat notification to respond to Pulses, they will be directed to the Viva Pulse Teams app to provide feedback. By the end of October, with the implementation of inline response, feedback providers will be able to directly respond to Pulses in the Teams Chat notification without needing to visit the Viva Pulse Teams app to provide feedback.

These changes will begin to roll out by mid-October 2023 and complete roll out by the end of October 2023.

 

 

For the latest information/updates you can always check these resources :

 

 

Disclaimer :

If others are interested to receive these “Friends of” messages directly from me, they can always share their contact details with me.

Or if you/they no longer want to receive these “Friends of” emails, just reply per email and I will remove you from this “Friends of” DL

 

Kind Regards/Vriendelijke groeten/Med vänlig hälsning/Salutations,

Mattias Kressmark


Disclaimer :

The content of this communication and its attachments (if any) is for general information purposes only and does not under any circumstance constitute a binding offer or acceptance of Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited, Microsoft NV/SA or any other Microsoft Group affiliate, unless this is expressly stated in a separate document executed by a person with sufficient powers to do so. The content shall not be considered to supplement or amend the terms of any existing agreement with Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited, Microsoft NV/SA or any other Microsoft Group affiliate. Furthermore you are reminded that the content is solely based on the limited information provided to us at the time of this communication and it will be subject to possible changes occurring hereafter.

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