Boost Your Productivity with Microsoft 365 Enhancements

Microsoft Teams is introducing new skin tone settings and reactions, allowing users to personalize emojis and reactions. 

HOW TO:  Each user can change their own skin tone setting in the Teams app Settings > Appearance and Accessibility menu or in the emoji/reaction menu on Desktop or web versions. The skin tone rollout will apply to emojis and reactions in chats, channels, and meetings on all Teams platforms (Teams for Desktop, Teams for web, Teams for Mac, and Teams Mobile). 

WHEN:  Rollout will be completed by the end of November.  

Currently, the capability to admit attendees from lobby and the capability to present are combined into one meeting role: Presenter. This frequently results in situations where meeting participants, who are not in charge of meeting management, are able to admit people from the lobby to enter the meeting, and the meeting organizer has no way to control it. 

With this feature update, we are addressing this gap by introducing a meeting option for meeting organizers to be in control of who can admit people from the lobby. 

The new Who can admit from lobby options are: 

1. Only the organizer and co-organizers can admit from the lobby: This is a more secure option that what is currently offered. Use it for meetings where only organizers and co-organizers should have ability to admit participants from the lobby. 
2. The organizer, co-organizers, and presenters can admit from the lobby (default option): This mimics the current system behavior, giving anyone in a presenter role the right to admit participants from the lobby. 

Existing meeting settings will not be changed. 

HOW TO: When the new feature in Microsoft Teams is available, meeting organizers can set controls for who can admit people from the lobby by following these steps: 

1. Access Meeting Options: Before or during the meeting, go to the meeting options. You can find this by selecting the meeting in your Teams calendar and clicking on “Meeting options.” 
2. Configure Lobby Settings: In the meeting options, look for the section labeled “Who can admit from lobby?” Then choose between:  (A.) Organizers and co-organizers or (B.) Organizers, co-organizers, and presenters.
3. Save Settings: After selecting your preferred option, make sure to save the settings. These changes will take effect immediately and apply to the current meeting. 

WHEN:  Rollout will be completed by the end of October.  

Microsoft Teams is updating the Your teams and Manage Team > Channels pages to enhance navigation and management of teams and channels. 

• An updated view of all teams will be on one Your teams page. 
• An updated Manage Team > Channels page will help team owners and team members to filter, search and manage channels in the team from one page. Team members will be able to navigate to the list of channels from the Your teams page with a single click. 

HOW TO: Several new features are changing to simplify and improve your customization of how you work with Teams and channels. 

• Team owners and members will be able to view their teams from the Your teams page, and access channels in each team. To navigate to the Your teams page, select Your teams and channels from the three dots in the top right corner of the left panel: 
  

• Team owners and members can select a team name to review the channels in the team and choose channels of interest to show in Teams: 

• Team owners and members can search and sort on the Your Teams page or hide all channels. When all channels of a team are hidden, the team will not show in the Teams and channels list on the left side of Teams. 

• Team owners and members can also view the channels in the team from the Manage Team > Channels page, and show channels of interest by filtering, sorting, and searching for channels in the team from one page. 

WHEN:  Rollout will be completed by the end of October.  

With this new feature Microsoft Teams meeting organizers will be able to make the list of breakout rooms visible to all meeting participants and allow them to choose which room to join. Enabling this setting in breakout rooms allows participants to move freely from one room to another, simplifying breakout room coordination for meeting organizers and participants. 

Meeting participants can select their breakout rooms of choice if the meeting organizer selects this option during setup of breakout rooms. 

HOW TO:  When the new feature in Microsoft Teams is activated, meeting organizers can enable participants to choose their own breakout rooms by following these steps: 

1. Create Breakout Rooms: During the meeting, click on the breakout rooms icon in the meeting controls. 

2. Configure Settings: In the breakout rooms settings, enable the option that allows participants to choose their breakout room. This setting makes the list of breakout rooms visible to all participants1. 

3. Open Rooms: Once the rooms are set up and the settings are configured, open the breakout rooms. Participants will then be able to select and join the room of their choice. 

This feature simplifies the process of managing breakout rooms and gives participants more flexibility to join discussions that interest them the most 

WHEN:  Rollout will be completed by the end of January 2025.  

Microsoft Teams for Mac devices is adding an extension to the macOS Menu Bar, where people will find a Teams icon with a persistent indicator of their presence status.  

HOW TO: Users can change their presence status with the Menu Bar extension, which also contains additional actions for streamlining Teams workflows. 

WHEN:  Rollout will be completed by the end of November 2024.  

Mac users will have many of their Teams shortcuts updated to remove the "Options" and "Control" shortcuts from the list. This allows Mac users to use keyboard shortcuts without any conflicts with existing macOS shortcuts. The new shortcut layout will be available for users after an update to the latest version of Teams. 

HOW TO: Details on the updated layout will be available prior to the rollout in the “Keyboard shortcuts” modal window accessible from the ellipsis (...) menu next to user's avatar, or in Keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft Teams - Microsoft Support. 

WHEN:  Rollout will be completed by the end of November 2024.  

Microsoft Teams is introducing a feature to add a location to your presence signal, viewable from profile cards, one-on-one, and group chats. 

You can view the work location of other people in your organization from several places in Teams. 

• View location from a profile card. 

• View location from a one-on-one chat. 

​​​​​​ 
HOW TO: To add a location to your presence signal in Microsoft Teams using the new feature, follow these steps: 

1. Open Teams and Access Your Profile: Click on your profile picture or initials in the top right corner of Teams. 
2. Select Work Location: From the dropdown menu, choose your work location. If you’re working from the office, you can select “Add a building” to specify your exact location. 
3. Save Changes: Your location will be updated and reflected in both Teams and Outlook for the remainder of the day. 

WHEN:  Rollout will be completed by the end of November 2024.  

Changes we are currently making to email and storage services in response to changes in Microsoft's pricing model will include deleting inactive accounts. Once an account is no longer active the following deletion schedule will apply. The deletion of the account will purge all data (email, email archive, OneDrive files, and other related storage data) held within that account. This deletion schedule will apply to all inactive accounts with the exception of any accounts on litigation hold or required to be preserved for other reasons. 

The following account types will be deleted 5 years after separation:  

• Faculty, Staff, Retiree, Student Employee  
• Guest  
• Non-human accounts, i.e. Organizational accounts (Shared Mailboxes)  

These account types will be deleted 2 years after separation:  

• Graduated Students who graduated starting May 2024 (Those who graduated before May 2024 will be contacted with details of when their accounts will be purged.) 
• Other Students (those that do not graduate or have withdrawn)  

WHEN: This change is already in place. 

As part of Microsoft’s ongoing efforts to streamline and enhance user experiences, they are retiring the Feed feature from the Microsoft 365 app, which affects www.microsoft365.com and www.office.com, as well as the Windows app (Microsoft 365/Office). 

Currently the In Microsoft 365 is located on the left navigation bar. It shows users a mix of content and activity from across Microsoft 365. 

HOW TO: The essential features of Feed have been integrated into the more accessible Recommended files on the Home page of the Microsoft 365 app and M365 website. 

WHEN: This will be retired by the end of November.  

Microsoft OneNote for Windows 10 will retire on October 14, 2025. Users should migrate to the new Microsoft OneNote for Windows app. 

WHEN: This will be retired by the end of October 2025.  

Starting in new Office 2024, the default configuration setting for ActiveX objects will change from Prompt me before enabling all controls with minimal restrictions to Disable all controls without notification. This change applies to the Win32 desktop versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Visio. 

Users can re-enable ActiveX by adjusting Trust Center Settings, the registry, or group policy settings. 

HOW TO: When this change takes effect, if you need to use ActiveX controls in Office documents, you can change back to the previous default behavior using any one of the following methods: 

• In the Trust Center Settings dialog, under ActiveX Settings, select the Prompt me before enabling all controls with minimal restrictions option. 
• In the registry, set HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\Common\Security\DisableAllActiveX to 0 (REG_DWORD). 
• Set the Disable All ActiveX group policy setting to 0. 

WHEN: This change occurs in October 2024 for Office 2024 and begins in April 2025 for Microsoft 365 apps. 

Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint in Office for macOS Version 16.91 only load dynamic libraries that are codesigned with a valid Apple Developer ID. As a result, Office add-ins or Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) drivers that rely on unsigned or ad-hoc-signed dynamic libraries don't work as intended. If your workflow uses unsigned dynamic libraries within Word, Excel, or PowerPoint for macOS, they will no longer works as intended. 

HOW TO: If your workflow uses unsigned dynamic libraries within Word, Excel, or PowerPoint for macOS, you will need to get an updated version of the product from the original software developer. 

WHEN: This change occurs by the end of November 2024. 

The new Microsoft Planner for the web brings together the simplicity of Microsoft To Do, the collaboration of Planner, the power of Microsoft Project, and the intelligence of Copilot for Microsoft 365 (if licensed) into a simple, scalable solution that spans individual task management to professional project management. 

HOW TO: You do not need to take any action. This rollout will update the existing web version of Planner to the new Planner. The new Planner for the web will match Planner in Teams to enable you to seamlessly switch between Teams and web. 

WHEN: This change occurs by the end of November.  

Microsoft Forms is introducing a new data sync solution with higher reliability to sync Forms response data to Microsoft Excel for the web. 

HOW TO: People who rely on the older version to sync data from Forms to Excel will need to manually update the data sync to the new solution before January 13, 2025. After this date, existing Excel files with the older data sync will be retained but will no longer receive automatic data updates from Forms. 

The older version of the data sync exists in two types of Forms:   

• Forms created from Microsoft OneDrive and Excel for the web 

• Group forms created with SharePoint Online, Microsoft Teams, and Microsoft 365 Groups. 

WHEN: The new data sync feature will be available by the end of November. If you are using the current live data sync feature, take action by January 13, 2025 to continue having form data added to an Excel spreadsheet. 

In September, Microsoft announced Copilot Wave 2, bringing numerous new features, product name changes, and other updates over the next few months. Changes to Copilot continue on an ongoing basis; in the 18 months since Copilot was announced, there have been more than 700 product updates and 150 new features. We have published a separate article detailing the Copilot Wave 2 changes. 

For those who have a Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 license there will be a new Scheduled prompts feature that allows users to automate Copilot prompts to run at set times and frequencies in Copilot in Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 Copilot on the Web, and Microsoft Outlook for the web and Desktop. 

Microsoft 365 Copilot is the version of Copilot that requires an additional license to give Microsoft 365 apps and services Copilot abilities as an AI assistant. Cost is $30 per license per month and requires a 1-year commitment. Visit the Administrative Resource Center (ARC) for full details on purchasing Microsoft 365 Copilot. 

HOW TO: You will be able to find the Scheduled prompts feature by hovering over a prompt you have submitted to Copilot in the past. When a user selects the Save and activate button to confirm the scheduled prompt. 

WHEN: This change will occur by the end of November.