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Microsoft Ignite

Global experiences, localized content, in-person opportunities, and more—let’s get ready for a new kind of Microsoft Ignite.

Discover what's new

Empowering today’s digitally connected, distributed workforce

Microsoft 365 is the cloud-first platform for all the ways that people work today—wherever, whenever, however. From information workers to frontline workers. No matter how you run your company or your team. And, with Microsoft 365, organizations save more than 60 percent compared to a patchwork of point solutions.²

Microsoft 365 comes alive in the new Microsoft 365 app, home to all your favorite productivity apps—Teams, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook—along with new apps for creation and expression, like Loop, and any third-party apps you choose. It’s a secure, integrated, experience built on the Microsoft Graph that brings together all your documents, files, contacts, meetings, and more—with intelligent, Graph-powered recommendations personalized for you. Simply put, it’s a better way to work. And the Microsoft 365 app will be available to customers across our business, education, and consumer segments.

Learn more about the Microsoft 365 app.

Transforming meeting culture with Teams

Microsoft Teams is the app at the center of Microsoft 365. With more than 270 million monthly active users, Teams has changed how people work more than any other app in the past 20 years. We’ve introduced more than 450 new Teams capabilities in the past year alone to transform meeting culture and keep everyone in the flow of work.

It starts with helping everyone have better hybrid meetings. Last year, we introduced new AI-powered intelligent cameras to Microsoft Teams Rooms, dissolving the walls between an attendee’s physical and digital presence. Today, together with Yealink, we’re bringing you the SmartVision 60, the first 360-degree, center-of-room intelligent camera. The SmartVision 60 produces multiple video streams with AI active speaker tracking—and soon: people recognition. Learn more about SmartVision 60.

As Teams has become pervasive for collaboration, we’re expanding to every type of hardware. Today, we’re announcing that Cisco is now a Teams Rooms Certified Devices partner. For the first time ever, Teams meetings will be available natively across certified Cisco meeting devices, enabling customers to configure Teams as the default meeting experience. Get the details on Cisco and Teams.

We’re not stopping with better meeting experiences. We’re on a journey to help you transform meeting culture, starting with the new Teams Premium meeting offering. Teams Premium includes Intelligent recap, a powerful new AI experience that’s like having a virtual assistant at every meeting—even when you can’t be there. It creates tasks, automatically generates chapters from the meeting, and shares personalized highlights from the recording. Teams Premium also includes Live translation for captions, which delivers AI-powered, real-time translations from 40 spoken languages so meeting participants can read captions in their own language. If an organizer has Teams Premium, all meeting attendees can enjoy live translated captions.

With Teams Premium, we’re also excited to bring you experiences that make meetings more personalized, intelligent, and secure.

• New meeting guides that automatically set up the right meeting options.
• Upleveled safeguards for confidential information with advanced meeting protection, including watermarking and sensitivity labels.
• Friction-free Virtual Appointments for personalized business-to-consumer engagements.
• The ability to host high-quality webinars using advanced functionality to drive deeper engagement and generate new leads.

Learn more about Teams Premium.

Introducing Microsoft Places: Transform your space into a place

Overwhelmingly, people come into the office for each other. That’s why we’re creating a new Connected Workplace category and introducing Microsoft Places to address the unique challenges of hybrid work. People are what give a space meaning and identity. In essence, people make a space, a place. Microsoft Places helps everyone understand who will be in the office when; where people are sitting; what meetings to attend in person; and how to book space on the days your team is already planning to come in. It also helps leaders understand how people use the office, and ultimately optimize their real estate investments. And third-party partners can build and integrate new and existing solutions on top of Microsoft Places.

Learn more about Microsoft Places.

Bringing the metaverse to work

Our data shows that 51 percent of Gen Z envisions working in the metaverse in the next two years.¹ Just yesterday, we announced with Meta that we’re bringing Teams immersive meeting experiences to Quest so you can connect, share, and collaborate in virtual reality as though you’re there together in person.

With Mesh avatars for Teams, you can create custom avatars to represent yourself—so you can take a break from the camera but still have a physical presence in Teams meetings.

Unlocking new collaboration patterns

Across Microsoft 365 and Teams, we’re making work better with collaboration experiences designed for synchronous and asynchronous collaboration, creation and expression, and business processes in the flow of work.   

This starts with making meetings more hands-on and interactive. Rolling out in November 2022, Excel Live transforms how people collaborate in meetings, enabling every participant to live-edit the Excel file directly, right from Teams—without ever opening the file. Teams Live Share, now in preview, goes even further by turning any app shared in a Teams Meeting into a real-time, multi-user collaborative experience where participants can interact, annotate, and collaborate directly in the meeting window.

With the latest innovations in Together mode, meeting organizers and presenters can assign seats to meeting participants in the Together mode view and can also pin the Together mode view to the meeting stage so everyone has the same view of the group.

The new hours and location feature—accessible across Teams and Outlook—makes it easier to schedule in-person meetings by allowing people to specify and adjust from hour to hour whether they will be available in the office or working remotely.

The new Teams channels experience makes it easier to focus and collaborate, placing recent posts at the top so people can easily catch up on the latest conversations, contribute to discussions, and pop them out so they can return to them quickly. The new channels feature new post types like announcements and video clips and a customizable channel header.

New features in Teams chat give people more ways to prioritize their most important work, protect boundaries and time, express themselves authentically, and have fun. AI-recommended replies save time, while the ability to “@” mention everyone in a group helps grab the group’s attention quickly. With up to 800 reaction emojis, everyone can express themselves in natural and authentic ways, and Video clips in chat gives everyone the ability to easily record, send, and view a video clip in chat, lending a personal touch to help strengthen connection.  

Learn more about Teams chat and channels.

With asynchronous collaboration on the rise, people need solutions to help them communicate and collaborate across space and time. Last year we introduced Loop, which breaks down barriers between apps to enable fluid collaboration as people think, plan, and create together. Today, we’re excited to announce that the Loop app—featuring workspaces, pages, and components that sync across Microsoft 365, is in preview. We’re also excited to bring Loop components to Word for the web, Whiteboard, and Outlook for Windows, to meet users in the context of their work, across Microsoft 365 apps. Learn more about Loop.

With Microsoft Editor, you will soon be able to surface Loop components using Context IQ, our set of intelligent capabilities working in the background of Microsoft apps and services. Loop also now offers Dynamic 365 integration within Teams—you can now insert a Loop component into a Dynamics 365 record while in Teams chat. We’re also introducing Edge Workspaces in the Edge browser, so everyone working together on a project can view the same websites and files in one place as a shared set of browser tabs.

New creation and expression experiences in Microsoft 365 include Microsoft Designer, a new app powered by AI technology, including DALL-E 2, that helps you quickly create stunning social media posts, invitations, and graphics just by entering a text prompt or other content. Microsoft Create features thousands of creative templates to spark inspiration and up-level skills. Today, we also welcome video editor Microsoft Clipchamp to Microsoft 365 to empower anyone, regardless of skill or experience level, to tell stories with video. These creation and expression experiences will roll out first in the Microsoft 365 consumer experience. Learn more about Designer, Create, and Clipchamp.

We’re also helping organizations drive productivity with new experiences that bring business processes into the flow of work. Adaptive Cards is a new low-code way to design and deliver micro-apps directly inside Teams. With Cards, developers can bring interactable content from multiple applications and platforms into a single interface in Teams chat.

Content AI is a new category of technology solutions that uses advancements in cloud and AI to transform how content is created, processed, and discovered—empowering people and automating workflows at scale. Today, we’re introducing Microsoft Syntex, which integrates Content AI into the flow of work with services like content processing, content summarization, e-signature, and more, that help you enhance, manage, and connect your content. Learn more about Microsoft Syntex.

Empowering everyone to thrive with Microsoft Viva

While places still play a key role in helping people thrive at work, work is no longer just a place—it’s an experience. And you need an employee experience that people can access anywhere, anytime. Microsoft Viva is the first digital employee experience platform that brings connection, purpose, insight, and growth into the flow of work to empower people and teams to be their best.

Just a few weeks ago we introduced a new set of apps and services in Viva to help align everyone in the organization around the most impactful work to drive business outcomes. Enhancements and integrations to goal-setting and objectives and key results (OKR) management solution Viva Goals bring the experience right into the flow of work. Viva Pulse lets managers and team leaders take the pulse of their teams for quick and confidential input, when they need it, to understand their teams’ needs on an ongoing basis and take action when it matters. And the new centralized communications management and publishing tool Viva Amplify helps employee communication teams and leaders communicate more effectively with their employees by automating publishing all from one place to reach people wherever they work—whether that’s Teams, Outlook, SharePoint, or Viva—and providing metrics to help understand and track message impact and improve over time.

Windows 11 and Windows 365: a new cloud computing paradigm built for the distributed workforce era

With Windows 11, we redesigned the operating system, from the client to the cloud, for hybrid work. Windows 365 is a new cloud computing paradigm built for the distributed workforce era.

With the new Windows 365 app, you can access your cloud PC directly from the Windows 11 taskbar or start menu and then stream the full Windows experience—all your apps, settings, and content—to any device. We also announced the availability of Windows 365 Government for Government Community Cloud and Government Community Cloud High customers in the United States. And, coming soon, organizations will be able to provision Windows 365 Cloud PCs for shift and part-time employees who only need a Cloud PC during their workday for a limited time. Learn more about Windows 365 news.

We’re also announcing updates to services expressly for IT professionals. Windows Update for Business reports will leverage Azure Workbooks to make deployment reports more modular and customizable to better fit your needs, and Organizational Messages makes it easy to communicate with people directly in the Windows UX, helping onboard employees or providing reminders of important training. We’re also adding branch office printer management and diagnostic reporting to Universal Print, as well as support for evaluating apps after an in-place upgrade with Test Base for Microsoft 365. We continue to add functionality to Windows Autopatch to help you move from Windows 10 to 11, and to support AVD patching to secure all your Windows instances—both in the client and the cloud.

Watch Panos Panay’s session for all the latest about Windows and join us on October 24 to 27, 2022, at our Microsoft Technical Takeoff event for an even deeper dive into Windows and Microsoft Intune.

Simplifying IT management

With Microsoft 365, we want to help you simplify IT management and reduce costs.

Today, we’re bringing new capabilities to the cloud-enabled Microsoft Intune suite, including endpoint privilege management, designed to dynamically elevate permissions, and Microsoft Tunnel for mobile app management, which provides secure access to company resources. And as I mentioned earlier, consolidating today with Microsoft 365 can save you more than 60 percent compared to a patchwork of point solutions, while helping your employees stay secure in the flow of work.²

Learn more about Microsoft 365, Teams, Viva, and Windows

At Microsoft, we believe that energized, empowered employees are the key to durable competitive advantage for every organization. We’ll continue to innovate across Microsoft 365, Teams, and Viva to help everyone thrive—because technology, combined with the right culture and leadership, can create a better world of work for everyone.

¹Hybrid Work Is Just Work. Are We Doing it Wrong? Work Trend Index Pulse Report, WorkLab, Microsoft. September 22, 2022.

²Modernize your business while managing costs, Microsoft 365.

Based on publicly available list prices of point solutions for identity and access, content and productivity, chat and collaboration, and meetings, vs. comparable Microsoft 365 solutions.

The post Microsoft 365 at Ignite—Re-energize your workforce in the office, at home, and everywhere in between appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

This month, we’re adding new features across Microsoft 365 to improve accessibility, support flexible workstyles, streamline routine tasks, and offer more ways to make your voice heard. We’re also launching new capabilities in Windows 11 and Windows 365 to help make hybrid work a little easier. Let’s dive into what’s new.

A more inclusive, seamless working environment

Support neurodiversity in the hybrid workplace

Notification overload can be disruptive, especially for employees with conditions like autism and ADHD. We’ve been working to cut down the noise by providing more ways to customize which notifications Microsoft Teams shows you and when, and new ways to protect time with Microsoft Viva Insights. We’ve also added new capabilities to support and improve reading and writing like text prediction options, voice control tools, and accessible authoring features—great for everyone, but a true game changer for workers with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

Learn about these features and more intelligent tools to support neurodiversity in the hybrid workplace in our what’s new in Microsoft accessibility for spring 2022 blog.

Create tasks with natural language

The To Do Windows app now supports smart recognition of due dates, reminders, and repeat information from the task title.² Now you can simply use natural language—like submit project report on Friday or follow up with client on Tuesday at 1 PM—and To Do will automatically recognize and highlight the dates, times, and repeat information and add it to your task accordingly. Update your Windows To Do app to version 2.66 or above to get started.

Get more out of Yammer

We’ve released a series of updates to Yammer that help make it easier to find what you need, share ideas, and customize to your preferences. First, community members can now upvote a response if it’s a helpful or useful contribution to the question, making it easier for others to find answers. You can now also bookmark a conversation to see the post and its replies later. Finally, dark mode for Yammer web will be available soon.

Switch between accounts in Microsoft 365 web apps with a single click

Switching between user accounts can disrupt your flow of work when you need to sign out and sign back in again. Beginning this month, we have started adding support for multiple work and personal accounts on Microsoft 365 web apps in the same browser, enabling you to seamlessly switch between the accounts with a single click. Just add your accounts to the account manager on the top right of a Microsoft 365 web app to get started. Learn more about this new feature in the Tech Community blog Announcing account switching for Microsoft 365 web apps.

Work securely from anywhere with Windows 11 and Windows 365

Flexible work requires technology that’s built for a hybrid world. Earlier this month, we shared the latest Windows 11 and Windows 365 features that are designed to empower new ways of working. We’re bringing the power of the Microsoft Cloud and familiarity of the PC together, giving you an even more seamless Windows experience without sacrificing security.

Drive productivity and hybrid collaboration with Windows 11

With Windows 11, you can easily organize files you are working with in File Explorer by tagging them as favorites and using tabs to quickly access those you need.

New capabilities like automatic framing, voice clarity, background blur, and eye contact create more natural hybrid meeting experiences.³ Live captions provide a more inclusive hybrid work environment for the deaf or hard-of-hearing communities, as well as language learners. Finally, we added snap assist for touch to help people organize windows in predefined layouts on Windows tablets or two-in-ones.

Empower hybrid work with Windows 365, the world’s first Cloud PC

With Windows 365, employees can stream their entire Windows experience from the Microsoft Cloud, enabling them to access their personal settings, apps, and content securely on any device.

Windows 365 Boot enables users to sign in to Windows 365 at start up—no need to sign in to the local operating system first. Windows 365 Switch will enable users to move between the Windows 365 Cloud PC and the local desktop just like they do between different desktops today in the Task switcher. The Windows 365 app provides users with another way to access their Windows 365 Cloud PC from the taskbar or Start menu. And for those times you need to work offline, like on an airplane or in the field, Windows 365 Offline enables uninterrupted work, with an automatic sync as soon as you reconnect.

Empower IT with modern management

Managing devices for a dispersed workforce and keeping them up to date presents unique challenges for IT departments. To help, we’ve added Windows Autopatch, a new intelligent managed service designed to keep Windows and Office software up to date automatically, to Windows Enterprise E3 at no additional cost. Learn more about this announcement on our Tech Community blog post Get current and stay current with Windows Autopatch.

In addition, we are launching a new communications function in Microsoft Endpoint Manager that empowers IT to send targeted organizational messages directly to employees across various surfaces in Windows 11, including on the desktop or lock screen. Learn about this new cloud-managed capability and more in this Tech Community blog post The endpoint manager’s guide to what’s coming in Windows 11.

Simplify what it takes to protect your endpoints in the cloud

We announced our vision for advanced endpoint management and shared our plans to introduce a series of premium solutions over time in Endpoint Manager that will help organizations increase endpoint security, improve user experiences, and reduce the cost of ownership of your digital estate. Remote help for Windows is the first of these solutions, launched for general availability on April 5, 2022, and is featured in the new Microsoft Mechanics video about Windows cloud management.

Govern data across your entire data estate

To meet the challenges of today’s decentralized, data-rich workplace, we’re introducing Microsoft Purview—a comprehensive set of solutions that help you understand, govern, and protect your entire data estate. This new portfolio combines the capabilities of the former Azure Purview and the Microsoft 365 Compliance solutions that users already rely on, providing unified data governance and risk management. Learn more about Microsoft Purview in the video Go Beyond with Microsoft Purview.

Empowering the future of modern work

As the future of work unfolds, Microsoft 365 is continuing to help organizations and teams embrace a flexible work model. No solution is better positioned to support the needs of a hybrid workforce than Microsoft 365. Be sure to check back next month, when we’ll be sharing the news from Microsoft Build, our annual developer conference. 

¹ 2022 Work Trend Index, Microsoft. March 16, 2022.

² Feature currently available in English (EN-) languages only.

³ Hardware dependent.

The post From intelligent tools built on inclusivity to the latest in Windows—here’s what's new in Microsoft 365 appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

Today, we shared details about the future of Windows and how we are developing new experiences to enhance the way we work today, and in the future.

We released Windows 11, the operating system designed for hybrid work, just over six months ago and are energized to hear how our customers, like Tower, are finding new ways to empower employees and move their business forward.

Talking to customers is one of the best parts of my role as General Manager for the Microsoft 365 business, and I learn a lot from every conversation—whether with an enterprise leader or a small business owner. Our team has also received a lot of feedback and input about the past two years and how it has forever changed the way we work, and I‘ve observed this just walking around my neighborhood in Atlanta—the way we work is different. Our work lives are in many cases more flexible, but also more complex. It makes sense, then, that the one thing I always hear is that organizations want solutions that are streamlined across their IT infrastructure, and seamless and easy for their employees to use.

We recently released the 2022 Work Trend Index, which surveyed 31,000 people in 31 countries around the world. What we’ve learned from our 2021 and 2022 research is that this rapidly changing landscape is shaping how we think about how technology serves us at work. This has been our inspiration for the features we announced today and how we will continue to innovate in Windows for organizations and employees, helping our customers transform how we connect, collaborate, and communicate.

The most compelling data we gleaned from the Work Trend Index is that 73 percent of employees want flexible or remote options and see this as a more permanent way of working. That’s more than two-thirds of people surveyed—a compelling statistic.

As a leader at Microsoft who was hired during the pandemic and works fully remote, I can relate to the new challenges businesses are navigating in moving employees to a more permanent remote or hybrid work setting, and the challenge employees sometimes face in different environments.

So, I’m excited to build off what Panos Panay, Chief Product Officer, shared today and give you some more details about the new features we are building in Windows 11 to power your businesses and your people, no matter where they are working.

Here’s what’s coming to Windows 11.

A faster, more dynamic Windows 11 experience powered by the cloud

Last year, we introduced Windows 365, the world’s first Cloud PC, to give people a simple way to stream their entire Windows experience from the Microsoft cloud. This means an individual employee’s personal settings, apps, and contents can be securely accessed on any device. And it’s persistent and always ready to go, so they can pick up right where they left off because Windows is streaming from the cloud. I’ve heard from many customers who are finding new uses for the Windows 365 Cloud PCs in critical hybrid work scenarios—from elastic workforces like interns or contractors to high-scale computing needs like developers, to remote workers and secure bring your own PC (BYOPC) needs. Windows 365 is easy to scale up so it’s particularly useful in times of change, like mergers and acquisitions. Coats, the world’s largest industrial thread manufacturer, was an early adopter of Windows 365.

Extending Windows to the cloud opens up new solutions that can help accelerate digital transformation by utilizing the power, intelligence, and capacity of the cloud to augment device capabilities. According to Gartner®, 72 percent of infrastructure and operations (I&O) leaders have invested or intend to invest in cloud-based user computing solutions during the next 24 months.

As the pandemic begins to slowly recede, and companies look to adopt more permanent hybrid work strategies, new integrated features are needed to enable more flexible ways of working.

So, we’re bringing the power of the cloud and familiarity of the PC together, giving people an even more seamless Windows experience without sacrificing security.

With Windows 365 Boot, I’ll be able to log directly into my Windows 365 Cloud PC at startup and designate it as my primary Windows experience on the device. This makes Windows 365 an even better solution for those temporary or frontline workforces I mentioned, where sharing devices and bring your own device (BYOD) scenarios are common. It allows different users to log in directly to their own personal and secure Windows 365 Cloud PC with their credentials.

If you are like me, you know the power of switching between desktop surfaces in Windows 11. Now we’re adding Windows 365 Switch, which will enable me to move between my Windows 365 Cloud PC and the local desktop just like I do between different desktops today in the Task switcher. I’ll even be able to use the same familiar keyboard commands, as well as a mouse-click or swipe gesture.

A new native Windows 365 app will give me another way to get straight to my Windows 365 Cloud PC from the taskbar or Start menu. All with a desktop path to my Windows 365 Cloud PC, providing a personal, customized welcome experience to tailor my settings, profile, and work style.

We are also working to deliver Windows 365 Offline, which will enable work in Windows 365 even when disconnected. When connectivity is restored, the Windows 365 Cloud PC will automatically resync with the Windows 365 service without data loss so the user experience and workflow are persistent.

Learn more about all these features in this Windows 365 blog and our new Microsoft Mechanics episode.

New inclusive and intelligent experiences and features for employees

In our most recent Work Trend Index research, we learned that 51 percent of people want a job that gives them the option to be fully remote, but they prefer a hybrid experience. The best news is that Windows 11, while designed for hybrid work, works for all scenarios—whether remote, onsite, or hybrid.

Today, I want to share with you some of my favorite new experiences coming soon to Windows 11 to make everyone working in these modern environments more effective. Best of all, these features are designed with accessibility in mind so everyone can enjoy the benefits of Windows 11.

I love how easy the centered Start menu design in Windows 11 is, and I’m excited to share how we’re building on that with new app folders right inside the Start menu. Now, I can enjoy the simplicity of organizing and easily finding apps on my Windows 11 desktop just as I’ve been able to do on my mobile device and tablet.

Refreshed File Explorer in Windows 11 to help you find what you need fast

One of my favorite announcements today is the refreshed experience in File Explorer. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent looking for important files and folders over the years. Now, finding files is a breeze with new contextual suggestions in Windows powered by Context IQ. This recommends relevant content and contacts across Windows—including content to the cloud. For example, I can see what files I might want, including files that my frequent collaborators are working on that I also have access to.

And with Tabs in File Explorer, I’ll be able to multitask and find multiple files at the same time.

During our 2022 Work Trend Index research, we found that 35 percent of employees surveyed say they wish they could spend more time working on solitary or focused work in order to be more impactful or productive, which is why we are introducing new capabilities in Focus for Windows.

Save time with new features in Focus for Windows 11

As a senior leader at Microsoft, I’m in meetings most of my day, and it’s often challenging to find time to get important work done. I’ve found Focus to be one of the most impactful tools to increase my own productivity. Focus was first introduced in Windows 10 to limit visual distractions and reduce clutter on the desktop. Today, Focus inside Microsoft Viva Insights helps me protect my valuable time by automatically scheduling focus time based on my schedule for the next work week. This has been a game-changer for me. And today, I’m happy to share the new features coming to Focus in Windows 11, such as an integrated focus timer and do not disturb feature that makes it even easier to track and personalize my focus time.

More natural hybrid meeting experiences powered by AI

As companies continue to take a hybrid approach, we are delivering new advancements to make virtual and hybrid meetings and collaboration feel more natural. These features* include automatic framing to refocus your camera as you move around, voice clarity, voice focus, and background blur to reduce visual and audio distractions in the background. One of my favorites of these new AI-based features is called eye contact, which improves eye contact during virtual meetings and video calls.

Better audiovisual experiences with Live Captions in Windows 11

We are always looking for ways to improve the experience with accessible features, and today we’re making Windows 11 better for the deaf and hard of hearing communities, as well as language learners with Live Captions. This new feature empowers people to easily access captions from all audio experiences and apps across Windows, including web-based audio, such as audio from your favorite streaming websites. I love turning on captions when I’m watching my favorite shows, so this is another incredible experience we are bringing to Windows 11.

Multitasking is a snap with improved Snap layouts

What did we do before Snap layouts? I love this feature in Windows 11. It may be the feature I use the most as I’m always using multiple windows throughout the day. It’s so easy to snap together two or more related windows when I’m doing research or to multitask on up to four separate projects simultaneously. We’re always looking for ways to help people work smarter, not harder. So, now, I’m excited we are adding touch Snap layouts for touch-enabled devices. This capability is going to improve work for so many, including frontline workers using touch devices in their day-to-day work.

Empowering IT superheroes with modern management

IT departments had one of the most complex undertakings during the pandemic—keeping the digital estate of their entire, distributed workforce connected, up-to-date, and performing. And doing that as the IT administrators themselves were also working remotely added even greater complexity. With the diversity of devices used across the enterprise device landscape, including physical and Windows 365 Cloud PCs, IT truly needed to be superheroes to keep all the endpoints secure and productive.

It is cloud management in Microsoft Endpoint Manager that provides IT with the needed flexibility to protect and configure endpoints for a productive workforce as well as unlock the new features and functionality for Windows. With Windows 11 built as a cloud-powered OS, Endpoint Manager is key to helping organizations keep their devices up-to-date and upgraded when ready.

Another way to keep things updated is with our new automated service, Windows Autopatch, designed to free up IT teams everywhere by making Windows and Microsoft 365 update management easier than ever. Autopatch offers IT peace of mind when it comes to ensuring endpoints are healthy, protected, and compliant, thus enabling them to focus on other business challenges.

Autopatch enables IT to strike the right balance between rollout speed and stability thanks to a ring-based, gradual deployment. It helps you get current and stay current while hardening endpoints against threats and increasing productivity by deploying new features with minimal friction and risk. If issues arise, they won’t turn into interruptions—the service can stop and even reverse updates, which means we’ve got you covered. Windows Autopatch will be available in July 2022 as part of the Windows E3 offering. Learn more about Autopatch in this blog.

Providing flexibility and data protection

Application management for Microsoft Edge enables people to access organizational resources from an unmanaged device while giving IT the ability to control the conditions under which the resources can be accessed. With app protection policies applied from Endpoint Manager, administrators will be able to configure how data flows in and out of the organization as well as define acceptable threat levels. This allows more businesses to safely employ a BYOD model, or empower employees to access company information through personal devices without compromising privacy or protection.

Improve communication with targeted messages in Windows 11

I am also excited about a new communications function that empowers IT to send targeted organizational messages directly to users across various surfaces, such as on the desktop, lock screen, or right above the taskbar. Imagine being able to share helpful messages to new employees onboarding or reminders for important training that might otherwise get lost in email. From the Endpoint Manager admin center, IT can create messages, provide customized links or URLs, configure the viewing frequency, and of course define the targeted set of users for the message based on the integration with Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD).

A new era for endpoint management adds more simplicity

Our goal is to simplify what it takes for IT to protect the endpoints across their user computing landscape to help organizations support a Zero Trust security model. We are excited to enter a new era for endpoint management, one that will provide an expanded set of advanced solutions and capabilities in Endpoint Manager designed to increase endpoint security, improve user experience, and reduce the total cost of ownership of your digital estate. We are bringing together additional mission-critical endpoint and security management tools into a single, cloud-powered solution and it starts today. Read more about the news of our vision for advanced endpoint management in this Microsoft 365 blog and learn about our plans to introduce a series of premium solutions over time that will help protect endpoints in the cloud, on-premises, and across device platforms, foundational for organizations striving to achieve a Zero Trust architecture.

The 2022 Work Trend Index highlighted that more than 50 percent of hybrid employees are considering going fully remote in the next year, so on-site tech support can no longer be the only option to resolve complex technical issues. Today we are launching the first of our premium solutions in Endpoint Manager for general availability, remote help for Windows, a cloud-based, remote assistance tool that provides a secure, trusted helpdesk to user connections. The endpoint is the new workplace. Providing resolutions to users—delivered by the right helper, with the right permissions, at the right time—is crucial for organizations in today’s hybrid world.

Help keep hybrid work safe with new security features

Given the fast-changing cybersecurity landscape, we continue to see accelerating with new threats today, it wasn’t surprising to see that cybersecurity issues and risks was the number one concern for business leaders around the world. To help address those concerns, we’re introducing new security features coming to Windows 11 to make the most secure version of Windows we’ve ever built even more secure for hybrid and remote employees.

With built-in chip to the cloud protection, Windows 11 helps organizations address the new security challenges of the hybrid workplace, now and in the future. With every release, we are making Windows more secure by default and today we’re thrilled to show you how Windows powers the future of business.

We are all potential targets of sophisticated phishing and other cyberattack attempts. I’m excited about future Windows 11 updates we are adding, like enhanced phishing detection and protection built into Windows with Microsoft Defender SmartScreen. We are also bringing more protection against malware, ransomware, data loss, and the serious risk of hardware attacks if a device is stolen. We’ve designed security in Windows to be simple for all—for businesses large and small, from IT to consumers. Our Windows customers will benefit from layers of tightly integrated hardware and software security from the chip to the cloud, designed to help protect our customers from wherever and however they choose to work. To learn more about the security innovations coming to Windows 11, visit the Security Blog.

Taking the journey to hybrid work, together 

As workplaces and world events continue to evolve, so too will the needs of your employees and organization. That’s why we designed Windows 11 to be the most flexible, secure, and productive solution for hybrid work. The features we announced today ensure that you can continue to count on Windows to move your business forward with cloud-powered technology and services that adapt and evolve to meet today’s challenges and tomorrow’s. 

Creating a durable hybrid work environment is a journey. Microsoft is on its own journey, learning as we go just like you are. That’s why we wanted to share our own Windows 11 deployment story with you, so we can all be students of the time, together. I invite you to check out my conversation with Nathalie D’Hers, Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Digital Employee Experience, highlighting the employee experience, and our case study on deploying Windows 11 at Microsoft.

One of our biggest learnings as “customer zero” for Windows 11 adoption is just how easy it was to do using familiar tools and processes like Windows Update for Business, Autopilot for new PCs, and tools in Microsoft Endpoint Manager like Endpoint Analytics to measure device health and status. With its common core and consistency across admin functions, it is easy to run Windows 10 and Windows 11 in your environment, side-by-side. And to ensure that we’re supporting you throughout your migration journey, we offer engineering-led services like Fast Track, as well as App Assure and Test Base, a powerful combination to help make sure that all of your apps are compatible.

ITC Secure, one of our earliest adopters of Windows 11, enjoyed the fast and simple process of migrating their organization and is now taking advantage of the full benefits of Windows 11.

Windows is designed for hybrid work and is ready for you today. Thank you for trusting Windows to be the platform for your business now and in the future. You can learn more about how Windows is extending to the cloud with Windows 365 here, and be sure to check out our Tech Community site for more in-depth information on features, deployment guidance, and best practices to help you on your journey to Windows 11.

*Hardware dependent

The post New experiences in Windows 11 and Windows 365 empower new ways of working appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

As we enter year three of the pandemic, more organizations are welcoming their employees back to the office, marking a move from remote to hybrid work. This shift is a return to a new kind of normal, and it poses an entirely new set of challenges. We are excited to share some product innovations helping to make this transition a little easier.

Stay tuned for a lot of product and research news next month, when we’ll release our second annual Work Trend Index, along with a series of innovations designed to make hybrid work work.

Let’s dive in.

Focus on what matters and collaborate across boundaries

This month we’re happy to release some of your most requested features across Microsoft Teams, Viva, and Yammer.

Pin or hide your own video in Microsoft Teams meetings

Seeing your own video feed in meetings has its benefits, but some find it distracting. Now, users can select to hide their own video in a Microsoft Teams meeting, while remaining visible to other participants. Users can now also pin their own video on the meeting stage.

Stay on top of required trainings

Microsoft Viva Learning can now sync with learning management systems (LMS) like SAP SuccessFactors, Cornerstone OnDemand, and Saba Cloud. With this new generally available integration, employees can view required learning assignments from their LMS in their My Learning view in Viva Learning as well as launch the courses directly. Employees will get Teams notifications when they receive a new assignment and a reminder when the assignment is due.

Get suggestions on Yammer communities and people to follow

We want you to discover communities and conversations that help you work better. Now, Yammer will suggest communities and followers based on previous interactions. Find and join new communities and follow people right from your feed. 

Auto-renew active Yammer communities

Community admins will no longer need to manually review communities that have views or engagement. Now, Yammer communities can be set to auto-renew when someone posts, reacts, or any file activity happens from within the community (including viewing the Yammer posts through actionable emails).

Collaborate with people outside of your geography while maintaining compliance policies

Members from Yammer networks located in the European Union can soon join Yammer external networks hosted in the United States. Rollout will begin mid-February 2022 and finish in late March 2022. Read our Tech Community blog Cross-geo external collaboration support on Yammer External Networks for the EU to learn more.

More flexibility in how you provision Windows 365 Cloud PCs

Hybrid work means organizations need more flexibility to provide access to Windows across different types of devices. Windows 365 Enterprise provides a powerful, simple, and secure full Windows 10 or Windows 11 experience that you can use to empower your workforce, regardless of location or device. In February 2022, we released a preview of Windows 365 Enterprise support for native Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Join and localized first-run experience.

Provision Cloud PCs without an Azure subscription

In February 2022, we announced the preview of Azure AD Join in Windows 365 Enterprise, enabling organizations to provision Cloud PCs without requiring an Azure subscription or Azure connectivity to your on-premises environment. General availability will be announced soon. 

Localizing the Cloud PC experience

Organizations around the world use and love Windows 365, and we want to give them a familiar and natural user experience. In February 2022, we announced the preview for a localized first-run experience, empowering organizations to choose from an expanded list of languages when creating Cloud PCs for their teams in Windows 365 Enterprise.

Looking to the future

From offering the option to pin or hide your video in a Microsoft Teams meeting to Yammer community suggestions, these updates are designed to give everyone more flexibility for when and how they work. We’ve got a lot more in store for you next month. Stay tuned.

The post From hiding your meeting video to Yammer community suggestions—here's what's new in Microsoft 365 appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

This month, we are continuing to build on our recent announcements, from making Windows 365 available to everyone to introducing new features in Microsoft Teams and across Microsoft 365 designed to empower your people to work from anywhere.

Let’s dive into the details.

Be productive from anywhere with Windows 365

At Inspire, we announced Windows 365, a cloud service that introduces a new way to experience Windows 10 or Windows 11 (when available). Now generally available, Windows 365 gives everyone, from interns and contractors to software developers and industrial designers, the agency to connect to their apps, data, and settings from any device. With Windows 365, you can begin working on a laptop at the kitchen table, pick up where you left off on a tablet in the car between appointments, and finish up on your desktop when you get to the office. Windows 365 is always ready for you to jump back in—even when you switch devices—and makes it easier for organizations to scale to meet annual busy periods by eliminating the logistical complexity and security challenges of issuing new hardware to seasonal workers.

Learn more about Windows 365 or sign up for your plan today.

Work together and personalize your Microsoft Teams meeting experience

This month, we’re introducing additional collaborative apps from our partners, a new Q&A app for Microsoft Teams, a new Communities app, and more.

Take notes and edit records right within Teams with new partner apps—Last month, we announced the general availability of new collaborative apps from our partners. Confluence Cloud by Atlassian in Teams is designed to enable more effective meetings where users can take notes with a Confluence notes panel inside a Teams meeting. Confluence makes team notes digestible and action-oriented and allows users to format notes such as action items, decisions, code snippets, mentions, and tables. These notes are then formatted and automatically shared in a Teams channel.

Salesforce for Teams is also now generally available. With this collaborative app, sales and service teams using Salesforce Sales Cloud or Service Cloud can bring account data and records into their Teams workspace for better collaboration and decision making. With the Salesforce for Teams app, users can pin Salesforce records to channels, chats, and calendar meetings to easily keep access to them—with an expanded set of supported Salesforce records, including Custom Objects.

Simplify virtual health workflows for your frontline healthcare workers—To help healthcare workers schedule and manage virtual appointments more effectively, we have added Microsoft Bookings with Microsoft Teams in all Microsoft 365 for frontline workers product licenses. For example, with the Bookings app in Microsoft Teams, healthcare workers can easily schedule, manage, and conduct virtual visits for simple telehealth workflows. Microsoft 365 for frontline workers provides an attractive, low-cost licensing option for healthcare providers that are interested in using Teams to support virtual health and care team collaboration.

Add open or moderated Q&As to any Teams meeting—To help provide a more structured question and answer experience during larger meetings, we introduced the new Q&A app that enables attendees to ask and reply to questions before and during a meeting. Organizers and designated presenters can mark best answers, filter responses, moderate and dismiss questions, and pin posts. Responses to questions are threaded in a conversation with the original question. Designated presenters can act as co-moderators to help screen questions. The Q&A app will be generally available in September. To add Q&A to a meeting, simply add the app during the scheduling process.

Experience the new Communities app in Teams and Outlook for web—The Communities app for Microsoft Teams brings a full-fidelity community experience, powered by Yammer, into Microsoft Teams. In the coming weeks, we’re updating the app’s design, bringing enhancements to notifications and deep-linking, and adding new capabilities like suggested communities, which uses AI to recommend valuable communities to join.

We also announced the new Communities app for Outlook for the web. Starting next month, you will be able to engage in communities, participate in conversations and live events, and share knowledge openly with your peers without leaving the Outlook web app.

Build in breaks and stay on top of what’s most important

Research has shown that small breaks throughout the day make a big difference in employee wellbeing. This month, we are introducing new features in Outlook and Yammer to help ensure you can plan breaks as needed throughout your day and help you keep track of important messages and critical tasks.

Get a break with speedy events—With increased online meetings and many of us being more sedentary than we would like, it is important to take breaks throughout the day and stretch our legs. In April, we introduced speedy events, which automatically sets events to start “late” or end “early,” helping people carve out essential breaks between back-to-backs meetings. This month, we are expanding support to the new Outlook for Mac.

Pin your most important messages at the top of your inbox—With large inboxes and busy days, finding a specific email you read earlier can be tedious and disruptive to your workflow. We’ve added the ability to pin a message, moving it to the top of your inbox so it’s easy to find later. Pinned messages is now generally available to all users in Outlook for the web, Mac, and mobile.

Get reminders to take action on email messages you might have missed—Message reminders in Outlook on the web help you stay on top of things by bringing messages you might have missed to the top of your inbox so you can easily take action on it. Don’t worry, we don’t want to clutter your inbox so Outlook will only remind you of one message at a time. Log in to Outlook on the web to try it out.

Post on behalf of in Yammer—We also announced that users can now post on behalf of another user in Yammer. Once approval is granted, internal communicators to share news and updates as well as reply to comments on behalf of leaders and their teams. To get started, leaders and teams will first need to setup their delegate in their Yammer settings.

Increase productivity with new features in your favorite apps

This month, we introduced suggested attachments in Microsoft Planner and the ability to create shapes in Visio for the web.

Find your files more effectively with suggested attachments—Planner now supports suggested attachments in tasks. Now, when you want to add attachments to a task, Planner will show you a list of related files for you to select from. No more hunting through your folders, servers, or cloud storage to find the right file to attach. Suggested attachments in Planner automatically recommends files that you might want to attach to the plan, saving you time. To experience the new capability, within a task in Planner for the web, scroll down to the bottom of the task to find the Suggested attachments section and select Add next to the file you’d like to attach.

Create shapes in your diagrams in Visio for the web—Currently, when you select a shape to add to your diagram from the available shape sets, the shape is added with predetermined dimensions. You then have to resize the shape based on their requirements. To help, we’ve added the Draw Shape tool, enabling you to draw shapes, including rectangles, squares, lines, circles, and ellipses, at the size and location you prefer. To create a shape in your diagram from the Insert tab, select the Draw Shape drop-down, select the shape you want, click anywhere in the canvas, and then drag to draw the shape.

Tools for the future of hybrid work

Hybrid work is here. As organizations across the globe navigate the increased complexities of this once-in-a-generation shift in the way we work, we will continue to deliver innovation that enables people to be productive and feel included in this new world of work. 

From Windows 365, which enables people to stream all of their personalized applications, tools, data, and settings from the cloud across any device, to the Q&A app for Teams, all of these capabilities are designed to empower people in this new world of work. And this is all just the beginning. Stay tuned for more. 

The post From Windows 365 to Q&A in Microsoft Teams meetings—here’s what’s new in Microsoft 365 appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

With 145 million daily active users (and growing) Microsoft Teams is where people start their day and stay in the flow of work. Over the past 18 months, people have come to rely on Teams to meet, chat, call, collaborate, and—increasingly—automate business processes. In a very real way, Teams has become the new front end for a new world of work. But empowering people for flexible work isn’t easy. Every organization will need to build a new operating model across people, places, and processes.

This year at Inspire, we shared three ways that we are innovating to create new categories for a new world of hybrid work with the Microsoft Cloud:

• A new Dynamics 365 + Microsoft Teams experience demonstrates the power of collaborative apps and enables organizations to activate this capability at no additional licensing cost.
• Windows 365, which takes the PC to the cloud, gives people the ability to connect to their content, applications, data, and settings without limiting them to any single device.
• New partner integrations with Microsoft Viva enhance the employee experience.

We’re also announcing additional innovations across Microsoft 365—including new security capabilities, new app monetization capabilities in the marketplace, and Microsoft 365 Lighthouse. In a changing world of work, these announcements bring opportunities for our partners and customers. Let’s take a look.

Collaborative apps: Activate the flow of work with Dynamics 365 in Teams

Hybrid work requires a new class of apps that surface in rich ways across all the places people work – within chat, channels, and meetings. These apps are a fusion of people and business process, and we call them simply “collaborative apps.” They also present an incredible opportunity for our partners to connect with the 145 million daily active users in Teams and expand their total addressable market.

Together, Dynamics 365 and Teams offer powerful new ways for everyone across an organization to seamlessly exchange and capture ideas right in the flow of work. Today we announced a new collaborative app that brings together the best of Dynamics 365 and Teams. We’re also eliminating the licensing tax that has historically held organizations back from this kind of integration, making these experiences available within Teams to any user, at no additional cost.

No other technology vendor offers this kind of integration and accessibility across the organization without the need to pay for multiple underlying software licenses.

View and edit Dynamics 365 records right within your Teams workflow

Dynamics 365 users can now invite anyone in the organization to view and collaborate on customer records right within the flow of a Teams chat or channel, ensuring the right individuals can take the next best action—faster and more efficiently without needing to switch context across multiple apps and data sources. For sellers, this includes sharing information like details on the sales opportunity, customer history, health of the customer relationship, key contacts, and more. For customer service representatives, this could include sharing the customer case record, sourcing troubleshooting steps, and tracking follow-up tasks.

Add a Teams meeting to appointments and capture notes

Dynamics 365 users can now add a Teams meeting when creating an appointment, enabling access to key customer information during a Teams call. Users can also capture notes directly with the Teams call, which is automatically saved in the timeline of the Dynamics 365 record. Only users with appropriate permissions can access the data, helping to ensure the most appropriate employees are viewing, interacting with, and sharing customer records. 

Stay up to date on records with automated notifications and connected workflows

With more employees collaborating on records, it’s critical for stakeholders to know when colleagues make key changes as they happen. Automatic notifications keep stakeholders alerted to updates. Users can select specific chats and channels through which notifications are sent, as well as the frequency of notifications. In addition, specific adaptive cards can be sent based on the notification type, enabling more connected workflows.  

Break down barriers with collaborative apps from our partners

Our new integrated experiences between Teams and Dynamics 365 represent just one example of a collaborative app. Today, we also announced a host of new and enhanced collaborative apps from market-leading independent software vendor (ISV) partners including Atlassian Confluence, SAP Sales Cloud, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and Workday. All these integrations bring structured business processes and data together into the context of collaborative work.

Manage your Teams app purchasing across the enterprise more easily

ISVs will also soon be able to sell their apps directly within Teams, offering new economic opportunities and providing a simplified experience for Teams IT admins to purchase apps and subscriptions directly from the Teams admin center on behalf of their organization.

Windows 365 Cloud PC: Hybrid Windows for a hybrid world

The past year has shown us the PC’s central role in keeping people connected, productive, and secure while they work, create, and learn. Last month, we introduced Windows 11, which reimages everything from the operating system to the store to provide real choice to users.

Today, we introduced Windows 365—a cloud service that offers a new way to experience Windows 10 or Windows 11 (when it becomes available later this year). From interns and contractors to software developers and industrial designers, Windows 365 gives users agency to connect to their apps, data, and settings from any device and any endpoint. It creates a new category called Cloud PC, which uses both the power of the cloud and the capabilities of the device to provide a full, personalized Windows experience, anywhere.

Log on to your Cloud PC from any device

With an instant-on boot experience, users can stream all their personalized applications, tools, data, and settings from the cloud across any device. The Windows experience—whether you’re using Windows 10 or the upcoming Windows 11 available later this year—is consistent, no matter the device. You can pick up right where you left off, because the state of your Cloud PC remains the same, even when you switch devices.

Provision Cloud PCs in minutes with no virtualization experience

A Cloud PC can be provisioned from the Microsoft Endpoint Manager dashboard. With provisioning policies, a group of Cloud PCs can be provisioned within minutes—including defining which version of Windows, assigning specific users or groups, and more.

Windows 365 is not just for enterprises; it has been designed to be approachable for businesses of all sizes. In fact, for small to medium-sized businesses, there are simple to use tools for helping citizen admins choose and configure their own cloud environments, ensuring everyone gets the opportunity to pick the right PC and bring the power of the cloud to their users.

Stay protected wherever you access your Cloud PC

Windows 365 is built on the principles of Zero Trust and is secure by design, helping solve today’s critical security challenges. Information is stored and secured in the cloud, not on the device. Windows 365 utilizes multifactor authentication (MFA) to explicitly verify any login or access attempt to a Cloud PC through integration with Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). And within Microsoft Endpoint Manager, you can pair MFA with dedicated Windows 365 conditional access policies to assess login risk instantly for each session.

With Windows 365, you can bring collaborative apps, Microsoft Teams, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform—plus your security and identity credentials—with you anywhere, anytime. Access your Cloud PC no matter where you are—at home, the office, worksite, or on the go. Windows 365 will be generally available on August 2, 2021, and you can learn more in the Microsoft 365 blog from Wangui McKelvey.

Microsoft Viva: Employee experience in the flow of work

Microsoft Viva puts people at the center, connecting them to company information, communications, workplace insights, knowledge, and learning to help them achieve their very best. Powered by Microsoft 365, Viva is an employee experience platform designed to work with your existing solutions and can be easily customized and extended to be part of any company’s portfolio to help drive its culture transformation. Today, we shared new partnerships, development tools, research on employee experiences, and more. Read more about the news across the Microsoft Viva modules—Viva Learning, Viva Connections, and Viva Topics.  

Enrich your employee experience with new Viva partner integrations

Earlier this year, we announced a number of Viva partner integrations, ranging from content providers to learning management systems to wellbeing tools that make it easy for customers to connect employees with the solutions they use every day. Today, we announced 21 new partner integrations including Workday, Qualtrics, and ServiceNow. These partner integrations, in addition to the ones we announced earlier this year, will be available later this year.

Bring your solutions into Viva

We also introduced new tools to help our partners and developers integrate with, build on, and extend their solutions into Viva. Available later this year, Viva Connections APIs enable partners to integrate with the Viva Connections dashboard enhancing the discoverability and engagement of their tools directly within the Viva experience. Viva Learning APIs, available later this year as a preview, can be used to integrate content from learning providers, as well as due dates and assigned content from learning management systems where they can be accessed in Teams, Office.com, SharePoint, and Microsoft Search in Bing.

We are excited by the momentum we are seeing from our customers in their adoption of Viva. Customers like Old Mutual in collaboration with PwC are using Viva to empower managers to better understand employee behavior so they can foster a more inclusive and connected experience.

To help our partners build and market apps for Teams and Viva, we are also introducing a new set of benefits to build Microsoft 365 apps. These benefits include access to Microsoft technology, one-to-one consults with Microsoft experts to help our partners design, and build collaborative applications and employee experience solutions—marketing resources to scale to new customers, and support to achieve co-sell status to increase visibility with our 15,000 plus Microsoft field sellers.

As hybrid work becomes our new normal, ensuring your people feel engaged, achieve balance, and are empowered to be their best from anywhere is critical to success. In a recent study, we found that companies with best-in-class Employee Experience programs were 2.2 times more likely than peers to exceed financial targets and 5.1 times more likely to engage and retain employees. Read an executive summary of the report we commissioned with the Josh Bersin Academy for more information.

Secure your digital transformation

We are also empowering our partners to build trust with customers through new security offerings that prioritize inclusion, accessibility, and sustainability. Highlights are below—read our colleague Vasu Jakkal’s blog for full details.

Manage customers’ security posture at scale

We announced today that Microsoft 365 Lighthouse is entering preview. It provides managed service providers with one central location and standard security configuration templates to secure devices, data, and users for small and medium business customers that are using Microsoft 365 Business Premium. Specifically, Microsoft 365 Lighthouse empowers partners to quickly identify and act on threats, anomalous sign-in, and device compliance alerts. Reducing management complexity as our partners scale, and driving standardization across customers will allow partners to proactively manage risks and improve the security posture for the customers. You can learn more about Microsoft 365 Lighthouse in today’s Tech Community blog post.

Protect end customers against fraud

For partners who already help Azure AD business-to-consumer (B2C) customers manage identity and access for their customer apps, we are extending the scope of protection to include fraudulent activities by integrating Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection with Azure AD B2C.

Get visibility across more applications

We have built the app governance add-on feature to Microsoft Cloud App Security, entering preview today. Partners, who already manage Microsoft Cloud App Security for customers, can use app governance to monitor, protect, and govern Microsoft 365 apps and quickly identify, alert, and prevent risky behaviors.

Identify risky activities for users with critical positions

We extended the priority user group capability in Insider Risk Management to include fine-grained role-based access control (RBAC), now also in preview. It adds permissions to priority user groups to further limit alerts and cases to specific individuals instead of the whole group.

Customize regulatory assessments to fit unique requirements

New universal regulatory templates for non-Microsoft cloud in Compliance Manager enable partners to utilize the more than 300 templates available to manage customers’ compliance posture across different clouds and apps.

The future of work

As we emerge from this time of incredible challenges, we are optimistic that together we can empower people across the world for the flexible work of the future. We see an era ahead where people can have breakfast with the kids and quickly catch up on any missed meetings. Where organizations of all sizes—from a locally owned bike shop to a massive multinational corporate—can harness the full power of the cloud, from anywhere. And where every employee feels included and engaged, whether they’re working onsite, remotely, or some combination of the two.

The post From collaborative apps in Microsoft Teams to Windows 365—here’s what’s new in Microsoft 365 at Inspire appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.