Groups
A lot of new capabilities were shared, with discussion ranging from administration through to governance and use cases. New features were shared that will help users when it comes to guest access and managing groups at scale.
Key Highlights
- Azure AD naming & expiration policy
- Upgrade Distribution Lists (DL) to Groups in Outlook
- Connect existing SharePoint sites to Office 365 Groups
Features in Focus
Azure AD naming policy – You can now configure a policy for appending text to the beginning or end of a group’s name and email address no matter where the group is created, such as Outlook, Planner, SharePoint, etc. Admins can configure a list of specific blocked words that can’t be used in group names.
Azure AD expiration policy- Set a policy that automatically deletes a group and all its associated apps after a specific period. The group owner(s) will receive email notifications prior to the expiration date, and they will be able to extend the expiration date if the group is still in use.
Upgrade Distribution Lists (DL) to Groups in Outlook- You can now easily upgrade all your eligible DL in seconds via the Exchange Admin center or using PowerShell cmdlets.
Connect existing SharePoint sites to Office 365 Groups – You can now connect an existing SharePoint team site to a new Office 365 Group, to improve your team’s productivity.
Guest Access – Supports all/block domains, guest inviter role and guest expiry.
Power BI
No major updates were announced at Ignite, as these came earlier in the year. It’s a great tool and regular updates are recorded by the PowerBI team so do follow their blog.
Power BI Embedded capacity based SKUs are coming to Azure on 2 October.
Stream
We’re really excited about Stream, this service will replace Office 365 Video starting shortly. If you havent seen it before, its got a much more visual UI, and has a huge amount of AI capabilities! Available in Beta from later October, but will not move to General Availability in Dentsu Aegis Network until February next year. This is due to the migration process of Office 365 Video to Stream as well as the innovation awards that will be running in January 2018.
Office updates
Zoom launched- You can zoom in to get a close-up view of your file or zoom out to see more of the page at a reduced size. find out more here.
Micorsoft Translator (Preview) – lets you translate text across multiple languages – it was used heavily in
Office 2019 – Microsoft has announced that Office 2019 should ship sometime during the second half of next year. You may notice that next year is 2018 not 2019, but that raises another point. Microsoft’s focus is very much now on a cloud-first approach. You can buy the Office desktop applications in the traditional perpetually-licensed way, or on the Office 365 subscription model. Reported updates are major revisions to Excel and PowerPoint, along with more inking support (useful with tablet and 2-in-1 devices such as the Surface Pro), and voice control.
A new office app launcher is coming – check it out here
Resources:
- Information about the Azure AD naming policy.
- Details about the Group Expiration Policy.
- Upgrade Distribution Lists (DL) to groups in Outlook.
- Work better together: connect existing SharePoint sites to Office 365 groups.
- Guest Access management in Groups.
- Use Microsoft Graph to secure and manage your enterprise.
- A New Office 365 App launcher to aid web productivity.
- 2017 overview for Office 365 Groups – Insight into managing groups at scale, directory management, policies and information protection, auditing, reporting, and the latest admin road-map.
- Unleash Office 365 Groups: Deep dive – Detailed demonstrations on how to enable Office 365 Group creation for a scoped set of users, implement and configure features such as Expiration Policy, Naming Convention, and Soft Delete, and use Guest Access.
Microsoft Ignite 2017 Highlights 