What’s New in Microsoft 365 for November 2020

Here at Navo, we try to summarize all the latest changes in Microsoft 365 each month. These are the most recent changes to Microsoft 365 for November 2020 and some more changes that are rolling out over the next few months.

All rollout dates mentioned are for general availability timelines; Microsoft targeted release customers will get these features earlier.

Microsoft Teams Announcements for November 2020

Microsoft Teams to launch a Public Preview program for end users in November 2020

Microsoft is launching a public preview program that gives users early access to unreleased features in Microsoft Teams.

This can be enabled by Teams administrators via Teams policy. The default setting is Off. Once the policy is enabled, users will need to opt in by clicking on their profile picture, then About, then Public Preview.

The rollout of the public preview program should be complete by mid-November.

Personal accounts in Teams coming to desktop

Right now, you can add personal accounts to Microsoft Teams mobile apps. Starting this month, Microsoft is rolling out personal account support for the Microsoft Teams desktop app.

Your work account and personal account will run in separate windows.

This option can be managed via Teams policy.

Account information is moving

Microsoft is reorganizing how accounts and orgs are accessed in Microsoft Teams.

If you belong to multiple organizations in Teams right now, you see a dropdown in the title bar beside the organization name.

If you are currently a member of multiple organizations in Teams, by early December, this information will move into a menu item called “Accounts and orgs”, accessed by clicking on your profile picture.

If you are only part of one organization in Teams, nothing will change.

New scenes for Together Mode in Teams Meetings

Teams is rolling out new scenes for Together Mode, a feature that Microsoft says actually helps people feel more connected. They hope to complete rolling out these new scenes by mid-December.

Microsoft Teams on the web gets Fluent design updates

By mid-January, Microsoft Teams on the web will have new default and dark theme colors and new icons for all themes.

The Fluent design system is used by Microsoft to maintain cohesive design for Microsoft products.

Forms polls in Microsoft Teams meetings

Starting rollout now and complete by early December, Forms polls will be available for Microsoft Teams meetings in the desktop and web applications.

Meeting presenters can create draft polls before meetings and launch polls during meetings. After meetings, they can view responses in the meeting tab, in the Forms app on the web, or export responses to an Excel workbook.

Anyone can present in a meeting by default, unless your organization has specified a different policy or the meeting organizer has overridden the setting for a meeting they have scheduled.

All meeting attendees will be able to view polls, answer polls, and see poll results in real time. If the poll is not closed, attendees can still respond to it after the meeting.

Other Microsoft Teams announcements for November 2020

• By mid-November, administrators will be able to customize the Teams Apps store in Microsoft Teams with your organization’s brand images and colors.
• After November, Microsoft Teams will not be accessible from Internet Explorer 11. Microsoft will no longer support Internet Explorer 11 in any apps and services by August 17, 2021. Read more about Microsoft’s initiative to retire support for IE 11.
• Starting in early December, if a user has a Microsoft Teams license, Teams will be enabled for them. Microsoft is removing the option to enable or disable Teams for licensed users will be removed.
• By mid-December, the way someone is invited to a meeting will influence access to meeting chat. Please note these changes do not apply to channel meetings.
• After a single meeting, original and forwarded invitees to the meeting will have access to the meeting chat. Directly added participants will no longer have access to chat after a meeting is over; however, they will be able to review chat history.
• After a recurring meeting, original invitees to the meeting will have access to the meeting chat. Forward invitees and directly added participants will no longer have access to chat after a meeting is over; however, they will be able to review chat history.

SharePoint Online Announcements for November 2020

Undo and redo commands for lists in SharePoint and Microsoft Lists

By late December, undo and redo commands will be available for lists in SharePoint and Microsoft Lists.

Users will also be able to use shortcuts like Ctrl + Z and Ctrl + Shift + Z to undo and redo while editing lists from grid view.

Microsoft OneDrive Announcements for November 2020

Exclude specific files from uploading to OneDrive or SharePoint

By early December, OneDrive users on Windows devices will be able to exclude newly added files, by file name or extension, from syncing to OneDrive or SharePoint. This setting can use complete names and wildcard characters.

Files that this setting has excluded from sync can still be uploaded via web browser.

Bookmark feature in OneDrive for iOS

A new bookmark feature, available by late December, will allow OneDrive for iOS users to add bookmarks into PDF documents, allowing them to return to a specific page easily.

New OneDrive Shared Library creation experience

A new experience for creating shared libraries in OneDrive focuses on Name and Membership settings and hides all other options under an advanced settings dropdown.

The simplified shared library creation experience will be available by mid December.

Other Microsoft 365 Announcements for November 2020

Power Apps custom form delete and restore connected to associated lists

By the end of November, Power Apps custom forms will be deleted when their associated lists are deleted and restored if those lists are restored.

If site or list owners want to delete the Power Apps custom form and keep the list, they can do so by following these steps.

Simplified Microsoft 365 admin center experience for very small organizations

Microsoft is simplifying the admin center landing page for small organizations with 10 or fewer users.

This new experience will be here by the end of January 2021. When it is here, you’ll be able to toggle it on and off using the “Essentials view” toggle.

Data-at-rest encryption for Microsoft 365 in preview

By mid-January 2021, data-at-rest encryption for Microsoft 365 will be available in preview, allowing organizations to create and apply policies that encrypt data across Exchange Online and Microsoft Teams using customer managed keys.

To access the “Data-at-rest Encryption for Microsoft 365” preview, you must reach out to Microsoft at m365ck@microsoft.com with an onboarding request.

Documentation for this service will be available once it is rolled out.

Microsoft Edge new tab page for enterprise gets news feeds

The Enterprise new tab page in Microsoft Edge will show Office productivity content from Office 365 and provide access to customizable industry news for your tenant.

More Microsoft 365 Announcements for November 2020

• Starting in early December, Tenant-wide search usage reports are moving from the SharePoint admin center into the Microsoft admin center under Microsoft Search.
• By early December, eDiscovery will support decryption for attachments in Exchange.
• Currently, to use sensitive information type entity definitions, a Microsoft E3 or E5 license is required. Starting mid-December, Microsoft is releasing a new service plan called “Data Classification in Microsoft 365” that will allow for these capabilities without an E3 or E5 license.
• Microsoft 365 Endpoint DLP (Data Loss Protection) will be generally available by mid December. This allows organizations to use the Microsoft Information Protection service capabilities with the endpoint to enforce policies for activities such as copying sensitive files to external devices or network shares, printing sensitive files, copying sensitive files to the clipboard, and uploading sensitive files to cloud services.
• By mid-December, the Microsoft 365 compliance center will have a new dashboard for audit retention that allows audit log retention policies to be managed in a centralized location.
• SharePoint spaces will be viewable on touch devices by the end of December 2020 (but will still need to be authored with a mouse and keyboard).
• Microsoft to release a new installable Yammer Desktop experience by the end of March 2021 and retire current Yammer Desktop app mid-2021.

Join us for “What’s New in Microsoft 365” January 2021

If you’d like to join our monthly Teams meeting where we talk about these changes, go to http://meetup.com/VicO365 and join our Meetup group. Although based in Victoria, our meetings are now 100% remote and open to everyone! We will be taking a hiatus in December, so our next meetup will be in January 2021. Hope to see you in the new year!

Originally published at https://getnavo.com on November 18, 2020.