Office 365 Weekly Digest | September 9 – 15, 2018

Welcome to the September 9 - 15, 2018 edition of the Office 365 Weekly Digest.

There were three additions to the Office 365 Roadmap last week, including the general availability of the Microsoft Graph Security API and automated transcription services for video and audio files stored in OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online.

The major event added in this week's post is the upcoming Microsoft Ignite conference on September 24 - 28, 2018, with information on how to attend the sold-out event remotely. Also, the next "Teams Tuesday" is on September 18th.

Highlights from last week's blog posts include updates to Microsoft Secure Score, GDPR compliance for Microsoft Forms, the availability of comments in Power BI dashboards, and recent updates to Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection.

Headlining the noteworthy items in this week's post is a reminder about the changes to Office 365 IP address range and URL publication on October 2, 2018. Also included this week is the Office 365 Update video for September 2018, the summary document from last week's "Move to the Modern Desktop" AMA, and a couple of Teams-related videos for IT Pros.

 

OFFICE 365 ROADMAP

 

Below are the items added to the Office 365 Roadmap last week:

 

Feature ID	App / Service	Title	Description	Status	Added	Estimated Release	More Info
32871	Microsoft Graph	Microsoft Graph Security API: GA	As the number of security solutions and volume of security data grows, the ability to quickly extract value becomes more difficult. Integrating each new solution with existing security tools and workflows means added cost, time, and complexity. The unified security API makes it easy to connect with Microsoft and partner security solutions: Unify and standardize alert management: Write code once to get alerts from any Microsoft Graph Security provider, correlate alerts across security solutions more easily with a common alert schema, and keep alert status and assignments in sync across all solutions. Unlock security context to inform security operations: Integrate insights about users, hosts, apps, security controls (Secure Score and configurations), and organizational context from other Microsoft Graph providers (Azure Active Directory Microsoft Intune, Office 365, and others). Simplify security orchestration and automation: Develop investigation and remediation playbooks that call Graph Security to take actions, automate security policy checks and rule enforcement, and orchestrate actions across security solutions.	Rolling out	09/10/2018	September CY2018	Intelligence Security API
33497	OneDrive ------------ SharePoint	Automated transcription services for video and audio files stored in SharePoint & OneDrive	Beginning later this year, automated transcription services will be natively available for video and audio files in OneDrive and SharePoint using the same AI technology available in Microsoft Stream. While viewing a video or listening to an audio file, a full transcript (improving both accessibility and search) will show directly in our industry-leading viewer, which supports over 320 different file types. This will help you utilize your personal video and audio assets, as well as collaborate with others to produce your best work.	In development	09/10/2018	Q1 CY2019	Microsoft 365 is the smartest place to store your content
33467	Outlook	Outlook – Unauthenticated sender tagging	If you receive an email from a mail server which does not use proper authentication, the email will be tagged and Outlook will show a "We could not verify the identity of the sender" MailTip.	In development	09/11/2018	October CY2018	n / a

 

 

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

 

Teams Tuesdays

When: Tuesdays, August 21, 2018 – October 30, 2018 from 10am – 11am PT | Whether you're managing a new project or starting your own business, it helps to have a team behind you to brainstorm ideas, tackle the work together, and have some fun along the way. Now you can use Microsoft Teams to do just that. Join our team LIVE every Tuesday from 10-11am PDT to learn how you can get started with the free version of Teams. In this hour, we'll walk you through the product and key features, share best practices for getting started, and answer any questions you may have. We look forward to meeting you!

 

Azure Active Directory Webinars for September

When: Multiple sessions currently scheduled from September 11 - 20, 2018 | Are you looking to deploy Azure Active Directory quickly and easily? We are offering free webinars on key Azure Active Directory deployment topics to help you get up and running. Sessions include Getting Ready for Azure AD, Azure AD Identity Protection and Privileged Identity Management, Streamlining Password Management using Azure AD, Securing Your Identities with Multi-Factor Authentication, and more. Each 1-hour webinar is designed to support IT Pros in quickly rolling out Azure Active Directory features to their organization. All webinars are free of cost and will include an anonymous Q&A session with our Engineering Team. So, come with your questions! Capacity is limited. Sign up for one or all of the sessions today!  Note: There are also some sessions available on-demand.

 

Tune into Microsoft Ignite remotely!

When: September 24 - 28, 2018 | Microsoft's Ignite Conference is Microsoft's premiere event for interfacing with customers around "the latest insights and skills from technology leaders and practitioners shaping the future of cloud, data, business intelligence, teamwork, and productivity." With the event sold out, you can no longer attend in person but there is still a great opportunity to attend the sessions of your choice remotely as they will be streaming live! With 700+ sessions taking place there is something for everyone at this year's Ignite.  To facilitate remote attendance Microsoft has enabled folks to leverage the event schedule builder to begin adding key sessions to be streamed. Individuals not registered and wishing to attend remotely can log in to the MyIgnite portal with just their Microsoft Tech Community credentials. Once logged in you can then read through the sessions and add those you are interested in to your schedule.

Related:

• Unleash productivity with these Microsoft Teams breakout sessions at Microsoft Ignite
• Join the FastTrack Team at Microsoft Ignite
• Multi-Geo and Networking sessions at Ignite 2018

 

Productivity Hacks to Save Time & Simplify Workflows

When: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 at 3pm ET | This 90-minute hands-on experience will give you the opportunity to test drive Windows 10, Office 365 and Dynamics 365. A trained facilitator will guide you as you apply these tools to your own business scenarios and see how they work for you. During this interactive session, you will: (1) Discover how you can keep your information more secure without inhibiting your workflow, (2) Learn how to visualize and analyze complex data, quickly zeroing in on the insights you need, (3) See how multiple team members can access, edit and review documents simultaneously, and (4) Gain skills that will save you time and simplify your workflow immediately. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.

 

BLOG ROUNDUP

 

Staying ahead of modern-day attacks Part 1: Recent updates to Office 365 ATP & its real-world impact

While the threat landscape continues to evolve in sophistication and volume, Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) has maintained a rapid pace of evolution and continued enhancement to help ensure unparalleled security for emails and documents. Seamless integration with the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph provides 6.5 trillion signals per day from identities, endpoints, user data, cloud apps, and infrastructure, uniquely positioning Office 365 ATP to offer intelligent protection and detection capabilities. Office 365 ATP provides a foundation for securing the modern workplace with a powerful feature set, detailed reporting, and comprehensive anti-phish capabilities. Office 365 ATP is the most widely used advanced security service for Office 365, protecting more end users than all other security services from competitors combined while helping Microsoft improve its own security posture. As we look forward to Microsoft Ignite 2018 where we will be announcing the latest innovative capabilities for Office 365 ATP, let's take a look back at the recent enhancements that have enabled our customers and partners to continue maintaining their trust with Office 365 ATP.

 

Updates to Microsoft Secure Score, New API and Localization

We love that the community has great discussions on Microsoft Secure Score. One of the topics we hear from you and other organizations is on the Secure Score API. This is a great way to programmatically access Secure Score data. Over the past year and a half, we have received a lot of feedback on the API and the Microsoft 365 Security Engineering team is pleased to announce the availability and preview of the new Microsoft 365 Secure Score API. As part of building the new API we also wanted to provide it in other languages. In doing this work for the API, it also gave us localization of the Secure Score interface. The localization of the interface is starting to roll out.

 

Microsoft Teams: Blur my background! (Please…)

Have you been on a conference call where everyone turns on their video, except for you? If you're like me, I don't like to turn mine on because of the messy house, or just ugly office behind me. Well - Microsoft Teams has you covered. You can now blur your background when in a conference in Microsoft Teams! You can now use video, and not worry about what's behind you. Watch the 90-second video to learn more! | Related: Microsoft Teams: Share my iPhone/iPad screen in a meeting! (While on the beach…)

 

Microsoft Forms is GDPR compliant

Microsoft Forms allows users to quickly and easily create custom quizzes, surveys, questionnaires, registration forms, and more. The content in these forms, as well as end user information, remains in the direct control of administrators and end users. Microsoft processes data on behalf of customers to provide the requested service as set forth in our Online Services Terms. Administrators can set policies that control this information independently of the user account lifecycle for which Microsoft Forms is associated. Microsoft is committed to helping business customers comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which has been in effect since May 25, 2018. Microsoft Forms, part of the Office 365 Family, is GDPR-compliant. Our goal is to help global business customers manage compliance and avoid risk. | Related: Organizational Privacy Statement Now Can Be Surfaced with Microsoft Forms

 

Announcing Dashboard Comments in Power BI: Your new hub to discuss data and collaborate with others

At Power BI, we help you tell your story. Our platform of powerful tools empowers our users to analyze and derive insights from their data while creating stunning visuals to share that story. Analysis doesn't stop when you publish your reports or dashboards – the conversation continues in meetings, over email, and during casual chats – so we're bringing the conversation to you, and creating a collaboration tool within Power BI that encourages further discussion. We're thrilled to announce the general availability of dashboard comments in Power BI service and mobile. Now you can directly add comments to dashboards and specific visuals to discuss your data. You don't need to rely on your favorite screenshotting tool and email client to start a conversation; comments allow you to do all that in the same view! You can also pull people into your conversation by @mentioning others within your organization. Commenting is tightly integrated with mobile, so those you've @mentioned will quickly receive a notification and email with your message.

 

NOTEWORTHY

 

REMINDER: Changes to Office 365 IP address range and URL publication

The current XML file and the old RSS feed will be available until October 2nd, 2018. If you have automation that uses the XML format, you should update that to use the JSON format data. If you are using the old RSS feed you should either move to the new RSS feed, or use the sample Microsoft Flow we have published for getting emails on changes. Developer usage documentation for the IP Address and URL web services are detailed in Managing Office 365 Endpoints – Web Service. | Resource: Microsoft 365 Engineering Webcast: Improvements in Office 365 endpoint publishing and network connectivity guidance

 

AMA Summary: Move to the Modern Desktop - Windows 10 and Office ProPlus Updates

The summary from the Move to the Modern Desktop Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) session on September 12, 2018 is now posted! The live hour of Q&A provided members the opportunity to ask questions and voice feedback with the product team. We hope you will join us live next time!

 

Video: Office 365 Update for September 2018

Format: Video (12 minutes) | Jim Naroski covers recent enhancements to Office 365, including Microsoft Teams, SharePoint Online, PowerPoint, Microsoft Flow, Access, Security, and more. The video transcript, complete with links to additional information on everything covered, is available at https://aka.ms/o365update-blog.

 

Video: Teams Windows Desktop Client

Format: Video (23 minutes) | In this episode of Coffee in the Cloud, watch a Teams Academy video for IT Pros to learn the value of the Windows Desktop Client, how to plan for it and how to deploy it.

 

Video: Foundations of Microsoft Teams

Format: Video (59 minutes) | In this episode of Coffee in the Cloud, watch a Teams Academy video for IT Pros to understand how Teams leverages Azure Active Directory, Office365 Groups, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business and Exchange.

 

Office for MAC 2016 - September 2018 Release details

On September 11th, 2018 Microsoft released Office 2016 for Mac Version 16.17.18090901 in 27 languages. Our Office International team was responsible for translating this release. You will see the following features once you update: (1) @mentions in PowerPoint & Word, (2) draw with ink in Excel, PowerPoint & Word, (3) embed custom fonts in your PowerPoint files, and (4) insert 3D models in Excel, PowerPoint & Word. More information and help content on this release can be found in the MAC section of the What's New in Office 365 page.