Hello, and welcome to November!
We’re just days away from Ignite, which tends to be where Microsoft makes tons of new product announcements, and this year will be no different. That means you can expect a HUGE update in the Microsoft 365 space in the months ahead as the announced updates hit “General Availability.” As always, you are welcome to share this content with those in your network, so they can take advantage of these new features. After all, the return on investment we get from our use of Microsoft 365 is directly dependent on how well we use it. Let’s get started!
OneDrive Updates
Let’s start with OneDrive for Business, the foundation of Microsoft 365. If you work on a document, odds are good it is stored in OneDrive. In October, we saw several enhancements to the platform. If someone tries to delete a document that is shared, for example, in a SharePoint folder, they will get a notification reminding them that it will be deleted for all users, not just them. Along those same lines, it used to be that when you deleted a OneDrive shortcut, it deleted the document. Now, it will only delete the shortcut, leaving the document in place. If you are a Windows user signed in to your Entra ID, you will see a new experience in the Home tab of Windows Explorer. This includes the addition of a “Recommended” tab that will surface documents based on your activity. Coming soon will be additional enhancements to the “Details” pane in Windows Explorer. And finally, the “Sync Settings” panel has been simplified, making it easier to accomplish what you are looking to do.
Teams Updates
On the Teams front, your browser will soon have parity with the “New Teams Client” on your desktop. I’ve been loving how quickly the new client loads and joins meetings. As someone who works in multiple client tenants, I’ve also loved how quick and easy it is to change tenants. That experience is now coming to a browser near you. Edge and Chrome browsers are seeing the new experience now for users signed up for the preview program, with Firefox and Safari to come in March of 2024. Yes, I did say Safari! That happens to be the same month that Microsoft has targeted to switch all users of the classic desktop application to the new one.
Look for a new post coming soon that will dive deeper into all of the new features in Teams. One more update is the new channel experience. You can finally pop a conversation into its own window, and you can choose to put new conversations at the top of the list or the bottom. Cool, huh?
SharePoint Updates
Let’s talk about Library Templates in SharePoint first. Just like any other template, the devil is in the details about what the template will include. In this case we get Content, Structure, Metadata, and Content Types. When rolled out you’ll see a blank template or ones prebuilt for Media, Invoices, or Learning. The Media Library and Invoices templates will have pre-packaged Power Automate scripts you can choose from. Also landing SharePoint adjacent is a refreshed landing experience for Viva Connections. You can now add branding, send announcements, have multiple card sizes, a revamped resources section, and an improved page layout.
JourneyTEAM’s Pro Tip of the Month
Unless you live in a cave, you know that there have been many companies that have been breached by bad actors. Losses have been tremendous. It is not only recommended, but necessary to enlist Multi-Factor Authentication or even passwordless logins. In both cases, you should be using Microsoft Authenticator as the second factor or the key-based authentication device in your passwordless setup. What if I told you that you could also use Microsoft Authenticator to manage your personal passwords? Password managers are just as important to you as MFA is to your organization. Microsoft Authenticator is on your phone already, and is free and secure, so you might as well use it. Authenticator will manage passwords on your phone and in Edge on your computer. If you are sold on the idea of using Chrome, you can add Authenticator support using a plugin. You cannot currently use Authenticator to sync passwords in Firefox yet. Here are the steps to get started managing your passwords with Authenticator:
Open Authenticator on your phone and click Passwords on the bottom row. There will be a button to sync your passwords. I use one profile for work and a second one for my personal stuff, and choose to sync to my personal profile. Your choices might differ.
Sync any passwords you have saved in Chrome or Edge. You can also do a manual export and import using your desktop browser. This page will walk you through that process.
On your phone set Authenticator as your Password Manager. In both Android and iPhone you do that in Settings and then “Passwords & accounts.” On older versions of the phones, you might need to find the “AutoFill” settings and adjust them.
If you haven’t tried Edge as a browser, try Edge. If you still want to use Chrome, you’ll need to add the Microsoft Autofill extension. Open the extension and sign into the same account as on your phone.
That’s it. You might need to “fiddle” some to get it all working but you now can generate and store strong, unique passwords for each website you visit. Although there are other comprehensive password apps, Authenticator has all the basic features needed to manage your personal credentials, and that is more than good enough for most of us.
Ready to Maximize Adoption of Microsoft 365?
We have expertise in every corner of the vast M365 platform and can help with everything from email to SharePoint, to Business Process Automation with Power Automate or a Power App. We can even create a bespoke application in Azure to help you find a way to solve your “corner-case” problems. We’re always listening at JourneyTEAM, drop us a line!