Below are all of the latest feature updates coming to Microsoft 365
Microsoft Teams
1. Ultrasound Howling Detection in Teams Meetings
How this will affect your organization
When a user wants to join a meeting that has other participants in it already that are physically in the same room, the user will be notified before joining the meeting that several people have joined the meeting and that the speaker and microphone switch will be turned off to prevent any echo. The user can turn the switch back on at any time if they wish.
When will this happen:
Early March and expect to complete rollout in late March
2. Suggested Files in 1:1 Chats
As an extension of Suggested Replies in 1:1 chats, you can now easily save time when you need to send a file in a chat by tapping on a “Share file” suggestion. Once available, users will be able to tap on a “Share file” action in chat whenever intent is detected to send a file.
When will this happen:
Early March
3. Join Meetings from Calendar View on Apple CarPlay
How this will affect your organization
Users will soon be able to view upcoming meetings and join meetings via the new meetings view on Apple CarPlay with Teams after connecting iPhone to vehicles that support Apple CarPlay.
When will this happen:
Mid-March and expect to complete rollout by late March.
4. Busy-on-busy End User Setting
How this will affect your organization
Manage how incoming calls are routed when you are busy in an existing call or meeting directly from your Calls settings in the Teams app or on the web. Choose from the option to allow calls to come through, play a busy signal, or to redirect the call based on your unanswered call routing preference.
When will this happen:
Early March (previously late February) and complete by mid-March
5. Teams Premium Now Available
How this will affect your organization
Teams Premium is now available to help customers do more with less and increase productivity with new AI-powered meeting capabilities, including Large Language Models powered by OpenAI’s GPT-3.5.
Introductory Pricing Available for just $7/user/month vs $10/user/Month (Will last till July 1, 2023)
Full Partner Center Announcement: February 2023 announcements – Partner Center | Microsoft Learn
Teams Premium: Microsoft Teams Premium | Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Intune
1. Endpoint Manager admin center is renamed to Intune admin center
How this will affect your organization
The Endpoint manager admin center is now the Intune Admin Center
2. Commercial driver and firmware servicing
How this will affect your organization
If your organization holds an eligible subscription (E3, E5, A3, A5, or Microsoft 365 Business Premium), your driver deployment task will now be easier. You’ll use the same management tools that you’re already using with Windows Update for Business deployment service to manage driver and firmware updates. This is available via API today and will be coming to Intune in the future. No etas are provided just yet.
Full Post: Commercial driver and firmware servicing is publicly available! – Microsoft Community Hub
3. Microsoft Intune Suite
How this will affect your organization
The Microsoft Intune Suite will be generally available from March 1, 2023. The suite provides a set of advanced endpoint management capabilities, built on Intune, that will help customers simplify endpoint management, protect their hybrid workforces, and deliver better user experiences across their organizations.
Microsoft Intune Suite includes the following advanced endpoint management solutions in one suite:
- Remote Help
- Endpoint Privilege Management
- Tunnel for Mobile App Management
- Management of specialty devices
- Initial set of advanced endpoint analytics capabilities
Additional capabilities will be added to the Microsoft Intune Suite in the future:
- Third-party app catalog and automated app patching
- Cloud certificate management
- Multiple managed accounts on a single device
- Future advanced capabilities
Microsoft Intune Plan 2 will be generally available from March 1, 2023. Microsoft Intune Plan 2 includes a subset of capabilities from the Microsoft Intune Suite:
- Tunnel for Mobile App Management (MAM Tunnel)
- Management of specialty devices
- Future advanced capabilities
Microsoft Intune Plan 1 includes management capabilities currently available in EMS E3, Microsoft 365 E3/E5/F1/F3, and Business Pro.
Full Announcement: February 2023 announcements – Partner Center | Microsoft Learn
Microsoft Viva
1. Schedule Send Suggestions Available in Microsoft Teams Chat
How this will affect your organization
**Requires Viva Insights Subscription**
When composing a 1:1 message in Teams chat after-hours, users will see schedule send suggestions that enable postponing message delivery until the start of the chat recipient’s working hours. Schedule send suggestions will be available as default on.
When this will happen:
Late February and expect to complete by late March.
2. Take Action on Meeting Category Insights in the Viva Insights app in Teams and on the web
How this will affect your organization
**Requires Viva Insights Subscription**
Categories in Outlook and Teams allow users to easily tag and label calendar events. Users can get insights on the time they spend per meeting category in the Viva Insights app in Teams. Using meeting category insights, they can see how their meeting time is distributed (percentage breakdown), how that has changed (meeting trends), and details about each of their meetings contributing to their categories (meeting details). An upcoming update to this feature will allow users to take actions on these meetings to align their time spent in meetings with their goals. These actions include viewing/editing meeting invites, cancelling, declining, and categorizing/recategorizing.
When this will happen:
Early March and expect to complete rollout by late March.
Microsoft Exchange
1. Quarantine Admin Role Required for Exchange Admins for Quarantine Operations
How this will affect your organization
Tenant Exchange Administrators who visit the Quarantine Security Portal (https://security.microsoft.com/quarantine) need to be a Quarantine Administrator to perform Quarantine operations in the portal. Starting early June 2023 (prev early February 2023) we will stop honoring the execution of Quarantine operations by Exchange Administrators who are not Quarantine Administrators, Security Administrators or Global Administrators in the security portal
2. Allow End Users to Upgrade Distribution Lists to Microsoft 365 Groups
How this will affect your organization
This is an option for admins to allow end users to convert an existing Distribution List to a Microsoft 365 Group. Admins can select the Distribution List and trigger an email to the owner(s) of the eligible Distribution List from the Exchange admin center. Owners of the eligible Distribution List can upgrade it to a Microsoft 365 Group with a single click in the email. It takes a maximum of 5 to 10 mins for the upgrade to complete. Both owners and admins can see the upgraded Distribution List in the Microsoft 365 Groups section once the upgrade is done.
- In the Exchange Admin Center, Go to Recipients ->Group -> Distribution List -> Select the specific Distribution List.
- Admins can now see the new option “Preview Send upgrade request”. Please note that email is not sent at this stage.
- If the distribution list is eligible for an upgrade, Admins can select the owners to whom they want to send this email. Admins can either choose all owners or specific owners to whom they wish to send this email.
- The end user gets the email. Once the user clicks on Upgrade in the email, Distribution List gets converted to a Microsoft 365 Group.
When this will happen:
Mid-February and expect the rollout to be completed by mid-March.
Microsoft SharePoint
1. Microsoft Syntex Pay-as-you-go Preview Update
How this will affect your organization
As announced at Ignite and MC477853 (December ’22), Microsoft Syntex is a new family of products that utilizes AI advancements to transform how content is created, processed, and discovered. The free preview of Microsoft Syntex pay-as-you-go is coming to an end in March.
Full Overview: Overview of Microsoft Syntex – Microsoft Syntex | Microsoft Learn
Microsoft OneDrive
1. Favorite/Unfavorite Files
How this will affect your organization
Users in your organization will be able to Favorite files from OneDrive Web and Document Libraries and easily access them from the Favorites pivot in the left nav. Users can Favorite/Unfavorite files using the Favorite/Unfavorite command in the context menu, command bar or by simply using the star icon which will show up on hover.
When this will happen:
Mid-March and expect to complete rollout by early April.
Microsoft Admin
1. GDAP Timeline Updates
How this will affect your organization
New GDAP Timelines:
Transition active and inactive DAPs: Starting May 22, 2023
- Microsoft will begin transitioning active and inactive DAP relationships to GDAP with limited Azure Active Directory (AD) roles. We will provide clarity on the roles by March 15, 2023.
- For relationships that have been transitioned from DAP to GDAP, we will proceed to remove the corresponding DAP relationships 30 days later.
- We will pause the transition for the month of June to support the fiscal year closure.
The dates for the following milestones will be communicated on March 15, 2023:
- Stop new DAPs—DAP is currently granted when a new customer tenant is created. Microsoft will no longer grant DAP for new customer creation.
- Grant GDAP default roles for new customers—GDAP with certain default roles will be granted when a new customer tenant is created.
- Retire the bulk migration tool—The bulk migration tool will be retired.
PC Announcement: February 2023 announcements – Partner Center | Microsoft Learn
2. Extended Security Updates (ESU) for Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 on Azure
How this will affect your organization
Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 reached end of service in 2020. We recommend that environments using these products are updated to the latest version of Windows Server. ESU are available to help organizations remain protected for a limited time, while Windows and Windows Server upgrades are completed.
Extends only to January 2024
Supporting Article: KB4522133: Procedure to continue receiving security updates after extended support ended on January 10, 2023 – Microsoft Support