What’s New in Microsoft 365 | December 2023

Below are all of the latest feature updates coming to Microsoft 365

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Microsoft Teams#

1. Archive channels

New Feature ×

How this will affect your organization

For a paused or completed project where owners want to preserve channel content, but no longer want to keep the channel active, they can archive channels now!

Archiving channels will be available for Teams users. You, as a channel owner or administrator can archive a channel you own. By archiving the channel, it will not be available in your and channel members teams and channels list anymore and no more actions will be allowed on the channel like messaging, reacting, commenting, editing etc. In case, you want, you can unarchive the channel as well, by going to manage teams > channels. Team members can hoist the channel in their left rail even after archival.

When will this happen:

mid-February 2024 (previously late January) and expect to complete by late February 2024 (previously late January).

2. New Meeting Option and Meeting Policy “Turn off copying or forwarding of meeting chat”

New Feature ×

How this will affect your organization

“Turn off copying or forwarding of meeting chat” is a new meeting option that gives the meeting organizer the option to disable copying and sharing features on meeting chat messages for participants to reduce the risk of data leak. Once this restriction is enabled, meeting chat participants will not be able to copy chat messages using menu options or keyboard shortcuts, or forward or share messages to Outlook. There is also a new Meeting Policy setting in Teams admin center for admin to control whether users can see or use this feature in the Meeting Options page. Admins can also set the default value for this meeting option in Meeting Templates that they create. This meeting capability can also be configured within a sensitivity label policy: Configure Teams meetings with protection for highly sensitive data (opens in new tab).

**Requires Teams Premium license**

When will this happen:

mid-January 2024 and expect to complete by mid-February 2024.

3. Announcing External Access Analytics for Microsoft Teams

New Feature ×

How this will affect your organization

We are excited to announce that we are rolling out a new report in the Teams Admin Center that will provide basic analytics for external access. This report will allow admins to view information about external access

The external access analytics report will be available soon in the Teams Admin Center under Analytics & reports > Usage reports. We hope that this report will provide admins with more visibility and control over external access in their tenant and enable them to make informed decisions about cross-tenant collaboration.

You will be able to see the following in usage reports:

• The total number of internal and external users that leverage external access.
• The breakdown of external access usage by capability (TFW-TFW, TFW-TFL, Skype)
• The list of managed domains that have been communicated with using external access.
• The aggregate number of internal and external users communicating with each domain.

When will this happen:

late January 2024 and expect to complete by early February 2024.

4. Audio and video flyout and settings in Teams meetings

New Feature ×

How this will affect your organization

Audio and Video flyouts in Teams enable users to efficiently manage their audio and video settings during meetings. These features are easily accessible, allowing users to control their devices and adjust key audio and video features quickly and effortlessly, without needing to navigate through multiple layers of settings.

Users can access this feature in 3 ways:

• During a meeting, you can access the audio flyout and video flyout by clicking the split button with a downward arrow right next to ‘camera’ and ‘microphone’ in the meeting toolbar.
• From both the audio and video flyouts, you can access audio settings and video settings, which open as panels on the right side of the calling window. You can access these settings by clicking ‘more video options’ and ‘more audio options’ at the bottom of the flyout to open the side panel.
• Users can also access ‘audio settings’ and ‘video effects and settings’ by clicking the ‘more’ menu in the meeting toolbar:
  • Audio settings: “More” menu > Audio settings
  • Video effects and settings: “More” menu > “Video effects and settings”

When will this happen:

mid-January 2024 and expect to complete by late January 2024

Microsoft Intune#

1. New Device Experience

New Feature ×

How this will affect your organization

Enroll devices, manage profiles and policies, and access monitoring and reports all in one place in Microsoft Intune. Now in public preview, you can go to the Devices area in the Microsoft Intune admin center to:

• Get at-a-glance actionable information and key metrics about your devices.
• Access workloads for device onboarding, management, and monitoring.
• View, monitor, and drill down into active issues on the Overview page.
• Manage devices by OS platform.
• Access, apply, and view filters at the top of every list view.

Full Article: Try new Devices experience in Microsoft Intune | Microsoft Learn (opens in new tab)

When this will happen:

Currently in public preview. No GA Dates yet.

Microsoft Admin#

1. Update on new commerce timeline for CSP Government Community Cloud, education and nonprofit legacy offers.

New Feature ×

• How this will affect your organizationThere has been an update to the previously announced (opens in new tab) timeline for CSP legacy Public Sector offers (Government Community Cloud, education and nonprofit) in new commerce. Microsoft will launch Public Sector offers in new commerce across four waves beginning March 1, 2024.
  • May 1, 2024: New subscription purchases for available public sector product SKUs must be on new commerce.
  • July 1, 2024: Microsoft led migrations from legacy to new commerce starts.

Full PC Announcement: December 2023 announcements – Partner Center announcements | Microsoft Learn (opens in new tab)