Microsoft Office 2024 is only a few days old and available at a discounted price. However, the biggest advantage of Microsoft 365 over Office 2024 is that the former is always automatically updated with the latest features, giving users the latest and greatest Office experience. Not only that, but it’s also possible, albeit a bit difficult, to track what new features the company is currently working on for your productivity suite. With this in mind, we bring you the weekly updates of all the important Microsoft 365 features that have been added to the roadmap.
3 Microsoft Teams: New dashboard, impersonation protection and more
New dashboard, new way to insert hyperlinks and bulk operation overview in admin center
According to Feature ID: 421185, Microsoft is working on a “Best Practices dashboard” in the Teams admin center to monitor and address when specific standards are not met. General availability is in December. There will also be a new way to insert hyperlinks to your text in December. Instead of using the traditional hyperlink dialog box, you will be able to select the text and easily insert the link you want to insert (Feature ID: 420942).
A month later, Microsoft also plans to introduce a “mass operations overview” in the Teams admin center to help IT administrators monitor and track the status of all mass operations on the Teams devices (Feature ID: 420326).
Impersonation protection for Teams messages
Microsoft plans to introduce a host of robust privacy and security measures into Teams over the coming months. We will start to see a glimpse of these changes from next month when the company will roll out “Brand Impersonation Protection”. This will help users identify when an external user impersonates a brand to attempt fraudulent activities (Feature ID: 421190).
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Improved person search and name pronunciation
Another notable feature coming next month is the ability to search for content related to specific people (Feature ID: 421189). The idea is simple. All you have to do is type the name of the person in the search field and select the filter to narrow down the type of content you want Teams to show. In addition, according to Feature ID: 420329, you will also be able to record and share the correct pronunciation of your name to ensure that your colleagues do not mispronounce your name.
Email confirmation for external participants and updated hyperlink insertion
Microsoft is working on introducing an extra step for external participants who want to join a Teams meeting. From January next year, meeting organizers will be able to send a one-time password to an external attendee’s email address. This OTP, in turn, must be used during the confirmation step to join the meeting (Feature ID: 418125).
Give and take control during screen sharing
If you use Microsoft Teams on the web, the company has a big feature planned for you in December. Like the desktop version of the application, Teams for the web will also allow the use of the give and take control feature during screen sharing (Feature ID: 420327), allowing meeting participants to remotely control each other’s screens.
2 Microsoft Outlook: Delivery and read receipts for mobile
Last week, Microsoft also announced some exciting features for the Outlook mobile client. Starting in November, Outlook for Android and iOS will let users request both delivery and read receipts while composing emails (Feature ID: 421361). Not only will you be able to respond to these requests, but also be able to set preferences for future read receipts.
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1 Copilot for Microsoft 365: Copilot on OneNote Canvas and for creating diagrams in Business Chat
Source: mockup.photos
Microsoft introduces new Copilot features to Microsoft 365 users every month, and November will be no exception. One of the features expected to come next is the ability to use simple prompts to create charts, graphs, and data analysis in Business Chat (Feature ID: 420363). What’s more, starting next January, OneNote Canvas will allow users to call on Copilot to “generate an outline, a to-do list, or help you rewrite the content on the page or based on your selection.” However, this will be limited to desktop users (Feature ID: 417476).
Release timelines are subject to change
As with any feature addition to the roadmap page, the release timelines for the above changes are tentative. In other words, Microsoft can delay some of them if necessary. But even if it delays some of them, we’ll keep getting updates on upcoming Microsoft 365 features via the roadmap page every week.