Microsoft Roadmap Updates 2021
April Microsoft Roadmap Update
Welcome to the April 2021 edition of the monthly Microsoft product update.
In April 2021, Microsoft releases quite a few important updates. They cover several important products like Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365, SharePoint, and OneDrive.
The April 2021 updates cater to a variety of requirements. Included in this month’s list are a few related updates from late March, not previously posted here. Some of them offer better productivity, e.g., making it easier to share and sync files. Certain updates give more flexibility to users, e.g., Teams users can now conduct meetings and webinars with up to 1,000 attendees. A few updates cater to information security requirements, e.g., restricting access to external users. Some of the updates make email management easier and improve email recall.
| Description | Featured ID | Estimated Release | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Teams: Large meeting support | 65951 | April CY2021 | Added: 8th July 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Teams This enhancement will allow Microsoft Teams users to hold interactive meetings and webinars with up to 1,000 attendees. |
| Microsoft Teams: Attendee dashboard | 66585 | April CY2021 | Added: 22nd September 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Teams This enhancement allows Microsoft Teams users to measure meeting and webinar registration-related metrics in the reporting dashboard. It also allows users to measure attendance data. |
| Microsoft Teams: Windows native notifications in Teams | 66742 | April CY2021 | Added: 5th August 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Teams This enhancement allows Teams users to deliver Microsoft Teams notifications via Windows 10 native notifications. |
| Microsoft Teams: New file sharing experience | 51230 | March CY2021 | Added: 8th May 2019 Status: Rolling out App / Service: Microsoft Teams This enhancement streamlines sharing of files within Microsoft Teams. Teams users can now create a sharable link for a file that’s stored in Teams. Users can set appropriate permissions while creating this link. When they start a private chat or channel conversation, Teams users can set permissions for files stored in SharePoint or OneDrive. |
| Microsoft Teams: On-demand translation of chats on Android | 63226 | March CY2021 | Added: 18th May 2018 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Teams This enhancement will allow Microsoft Teams users with Android devices to see translations of posts in channels and chats. This on-demand translation is available with just a simple click. An organization might have team members speaking different languages, and this translation feature in Microsoft Teams will help them to communicate better. |
| Microsoft List: Customization of forms | 64165 | March CY2021 | Added: 19th May 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Lists in Microsoft 365 Microsoft List is a Microsoft 365 app that helps users to track information and organize work. This enhancement will allow users to adjust what information is shown on the out-of-box forms. Microsoft 365 users can now include a custom header and footer imagery and information on Microsoft Lists forms. |
| SharePoint: Portal Launch Scheduler in SharePoint PowerShell | 66162 | April CY2021 | Added: 15th July 2020 Status: Rolling Out App / Service: SharePoint For SharePoint sites that are expecting to see high traffic tenant admins will welcome this addition. The launch scheduler is designed to coordinate and schedule launch details for SharePoint sites. Sites can be deployed in waves and it provides an automatic redirect for users dependent on which redirect option is selected. |
| SharePoint: Microsoft Lists and SharePoint document libraries – gallery view | 57304 | March CY2021 | Added: 4th November 2019 Status: In development App / Service: SharePoint This enhancement allows SharePoint users to configure their lists that they had created using Microsoft Lists. SharePoint users can configure their library items too. They can use a dynamic gallery view for configuring them. Users can choose how their documents and list items will appear. |
| SharePoint and Teams: Folder in site visibly connected to channel | 30686 | April CY2021 | Added: 30th May 2018 Status: In development App / Service: SharePoint and Microsoft Teams This enhancement enables SharePoint and Teams users to identify which folders within their libraries have an associated Teams channel. Users can tell whether the folder has Teams chats associated with it. SharePoint users can identify this from the SharePoint user interface itself. |
| SharePoint: Collapsible sections on modern pages | 67147 | April CY2021 | Added: 24th September 2020 Status: In development App / Service: SharePoint This enhancement allows SharePoint users to show page sections in an accordion view. This means that uses can show page sections in collapsed or expanded views. The default mode of the accordion view will be collapsed. However, this can be set to show expanded views. Users can also show page sections as tabs. |
| Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Safe links protection for Microsoft Teams | 34298 | April CY2021 | Added: 10th October 2018 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft 365 This enhancement makes the power of Safe Links available to Microsoft Office 365 users. Office 365 users will now get protection from malicious links sent via Microsoft Teams. |
| OneDrive: Expiring access for external users | 43797 | April CY2021 | Added: 8th November 2018 Status: In development App / Service: OneDrive This enhancement enables OneDrive admins and end-users to stop sharing documents with external users. Admins and end-users can now make such access rights of external users expire. |
| OneDrive: Full-fidelity shared libraries in OneDrive | 49093 | April CY2021 | Added: 4th March 2019 Status: Launched App / Service: OneDrive Not only can you sync shared libraries from SharePoint and Microsoft Teams to your PC or Mac using OneDrive, you can now view shared libraries in OneDrive on the web with support for viewing file metadata. View, sort, and group by custom metadata and change your file view to any previously saved file view. |
| Excel: Notes in Excel on the web | 61187 | April CY2021 | Added: 16th December 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Office 365 This enhancement allows users of Excel on the web to share and track important information in their online workbooks. |
| Exchange: Office 365 Message Encryption (OME) – updates for mail servers | 64532 | March CY2021 | Added: 2nd June 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft 365 This is a series of updates to Office 365 Message encryption (OME). These updates will result in a more authentic message encryption experience. They include improvements that will reduce the likelihood of mail servers marking the OME OTP emails as spam mails. |
| Exchange: Message Recall in Exchange Online | 59438 | April CY2021 | Added: 16th December 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft 365 This enhancement improves the working of the Outlook for Windows Message Recall feature. The working of the recall feature depended on the email client used. E.g., the recall feature worked if the recipient of the email used the Outlook email client. It wouldn’t work otherwise. This enhancement makes Outlook recall the email directly in the cloud in Office 365 mailboxes. Therefore, the recall will work irrespective of the email client used by the recipient. Outlook will not recall messages in certain conditions, e.g., the recipient has already read the email. Top |
March Microsoft Roadmap Update
Welcome to the March 2021 edition of the monthly Microsoft Office 365 update.
In March 2021, Microsoft is releasing several key updates. They cover a wide range of Microsoft products including Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Outlook, SharePoint, Excel, Yammer, etc.
These product updates are varied. Some of them focus on improving the productivity of users. E.g., Microsoft Teams now makes sharing files easier. A few updates focus on providing flexibility to users. A good example is the ability of Microsoft Outlook users to send emails from their proxy email accounts. Some updates focus on improving the compliance posture of organizations, e.g., Microsoft Compliance Center providing improved audit insights.
Microsoft Excel users will find to gain better insights from their data, thanks to some of the recent updates in natural language queries. Yammer users will gain better insights too. Finally, the latest updates make life easier for administrators. E.g., SharePoint administrators will get a user interface (UI) with a familiar look and feel.
| Description | Featured ID | Estimated Release | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Teams: New file sharing experience | 51230 | March CY2021 | Added: 8th May 2019 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Teams Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Teams users can now share files on Microsoft Teams more easily. Users can create links for files stored in Microsoft Teams. They can then share that link. Users can set permissions for files stored in SharePoint or OneDrive when they share it on a Teams private chat or channel message. They can do this on the web as well as desktop. An improved file sharing experience increases their ability to collaborate. |
| Microsoft Teams: Dynamic view | 65943 | March CY2021 | Added: 8th July 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams now provides dynamic views to users. These views automatically optimize shared content, which helps the participants in meetings. Users can now personalize the view to cater to their preferences and needs. |
| Microsoft Outlook for Windows: Users can send emails from their proxy email address | 64123 | March CY2021 | Added: 15th December 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Outlook for Windows Microsoft Outlook for Windows allowed users to send emails from their primary email address only. Now, users can send emails from their proxy email addresses. They can also send emails from an account alias now. Microsoft Outlook will store the alias email address in the “FORM” and “REPLY TO” fields for the recipients. |
| Microsoft Outlook on the web: Users can send emails from their proxy addresses | 59437 | March CY2021 | Added: 15th December 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Outlook on the web Microsoft Outlook on the web earlier allowed users to send emails from their primary SMTP address. It now allows users to send emails from a proxy address or alias. This can help in many scenarios, e.g., mergers and acquisitions. In these scenarios, users need to send emails from multiple domain names. Alternatively, they might need to send emails on behalf of a team and department. Outlook will also allow the “FROM” and “REPLY TO” boxes to preserve the alias. |
| SharePoint Admin: New admin center home page | 57318 | March CY202 | Added: 4th November 2019 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft SharePoint The user experience for the SharePoint admin users will now change. SharePoint admin users will find the new admin center homepage similar to the Microsoft admin center. Admin users will now see more cards and graphs when they login to the SharePoint admin center. They will now get more insights on files, usage security, recommendations, training, etc. SharePoint admin users will have access to People Cards, furthermore, they can see details by hovering on the Active Sites list or the information panel. Admin users can customize the left-hand navigation. |
| Microsoft Excel: Natural language queries in Ideas | 60775 | March CY2021 | Added: 19th February 2021 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Excel “Ideas in Excel” analyzes the data in Excel spreadsheets, and it returns various visual representations in a task plane. It will now include the ability to write queries in natural languages. Users can now enter queries like “total number of products” or “top 5 products by sales”. They can write complex queries too. Natural language queries in “Ideas in Excel” can help users to summarize their data or retrieve specific facts. |
| Microsoft Compliance Center: Processes audit insights in advanced audit | 56792 | March CY2021 | Added: 17th October 2019 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Compliance Center Microsoft Compliance Center now provides new sets of insights to users. These insights and associated correlations identify key patterns in data. Users can use these insights to identify answers quickly, which helps them during investigations. |
| Microsoft Excel: Track tasks with @mentions | 49291 | March CY2021 | Added: 26th January 2021 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Excel Microsoft Excel now allows users to use @mentions in comments. This allows users to create, assign, and track tasks within an Excel workbook |
| Yammer: New live events insights | 65515 | March CY2021 | Added: 15th September 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Yammer Yammer now provides better insights to users about live events. Users can monitor attendance, furthermore, they can measure engagement. Yammer provides new insights enabling users to recognize trends. As a result of these, users can improve live events viewership. |
| Yammer: New conversation insights | 65516 | March CY2021 | Added: 15th September 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Yammer Yammer now allows users to understand which conversations were most impactful. Users can now monitor the engagement and reach of conversations. Top |
February Microsoft Roadmap Update
Welcome to the February 2021 edition of the monthly Microsoft product update.
The February 2021 product updates cover a wide range of Microsoft products. Products like Azure, Microsoft 365, Teams, Microsoft Project, and SharePoint are receiving key feature updates.
Many of these updates focus on productivity improvement. These touch upon dialing multiple numbers for a user, creating attachments and links for Microsoft Project tasks, enabling Teams users to have a gallery view, etc.
Some of the February feature updates deal with compliance. These touch upon the risks due to inappropriate messages, retention of messages, etc. February feature updates also include aspects like managing identity environments on hybrid cloud.
| Description | Featured ID | Estimated Release | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Azure Active Directory: Connect Cloud Provisioning | 63538 | February CY2021 | Added: 5th May 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Azure This enhancement complements Azure Active Directory Connect sync, and it enables users to bring in identities from on-premises Active Directory forests to Azure Active Directory. The capabilities of Azure Active Directory cloud provisioning come into play here. Provisioning of identities from multiple disconnected on-premise Active Directory forests into Azure Active Directory is now possible. This allows organizations to achieve high availability in their hybrid cloud identity environment. They can now manage identities in your organization by using a single cloud control plane. |
| Microsoft 365 compliance center: Communication Compliance is now available on government clouds | 67112 | February CY2021 | Added: 27th August 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft 365 This enhancement makes Communication Compliance, a Microsoft 365 solution to government clouds. Inappropriate messages in an organization can create considerable risks. Communication Compliance is an insider risk management solution in Microsoft 365. It helps organizations to detect, capture, and act on messages that expose the organization to risks. These messages could be internal or external. Communication Compliance allows organizations to create and implement customized policies, and this solution enables reviewers to check if messages meet policy standards. |
| Microsoft Project: Create attachment on tasks | 67151 | February CY2021 | Added: 1st October 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft Project Microsoft Project users can now add file attachments to any project task. Users can also add links to project tasks. |
| Microsoft Teams: The capability to dial multiple numbers | 66194 | February CY2021 | Added: 16th July 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams now enables users to dial additional numbers for a user. The chat header for audio/video calling shows a new split button. It displays multiple numbers for one contact. The caller can use one of these numbers to initiate a call. |
| Microsoft Teams: Large gallery view and “Together” mode on Surface Hub | 68734 | February CY2021 | Added: 22nd September 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft Teams On the Surface Hub, Microsoft Teams users can now use a large gallery view. This view can display up to 49 meeting participants at a time. Microsoft Teams users can also use a “Together” mode on Surface Hub now. |
| Microsoft 365 Admin Center: The availability of new Communication Compliance reports | 61089 | February CY2021 | Added: 13rd February 2020 Status: Rolling out App / Service: Microsoft 365 Microsoft Teams Admin Center now has Communication Compliance reports. Inappropriate communication activities in organizations can expose them to high risks. Communication Compliance is an insider risk management solution in Microsoft 365. It allows organizations to create customized policies concerning the risk analysis of internal and external messages. It also allows organizations to scan messages for risk analysis and mitigation. Organizations can now view the reports created by Communication Compliance on Microsoft Teams Admin Center. |
| Microsoft 365 Admin Center: Extend retention policies for Yammer | 63064 | February CY2021 | Added: 6th April 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft 365 The retention policies for Microsoft Teams Admin Center now extend to Yammer messages. This helps organizations using Microsoft 365 to use the Microsoft Information Governance capabilities for Yammer too. |
| Microsoft Teams: On-demand translation of Android chats | 63226 | February CY2021 | Added: 18th May 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams now offers capabilities to translate chats on-demand to Android users. Global teams might have people speaking different languages. Some of them might need to translate posts in Microsoft Teams channels and chats. Users can access this feature with just a click, and this is available to Android users now. |
| Microsoft Outlook: Text prediction on iOS devices | 63375 | February CY2021 | Added: 21st September 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook will assist iOS users to write emails and reply to them. It will predict texts so that users can complete sentences. iOS users can use the texts suggested by Outlook, alternatively, they can ignore them. |
| SharePoint: Automated news digest | 64685 | February CY2021 | Added: 4th June 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft SharePoint SharePoint brings the Auto-News Digest feature. This feature sends an automated email to employees in an organization about the latest news that they haven’t read. The Auto-News Digest uses Microsoft intelligence and sends a selection of news items via an email from SharePoint. Employees can opt-out of these emails. |
| Microsoft Teams: Keep messages sent when offline in a queue | 64687 | February CY2021 | Added: 4th June 2020 Status: In development App / Service: Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams users try to send messages when they are offline. Teams will now keep these messages in a queue. It will send these messages when the user connects to the network again. It won’t try to send messages that in the queue for more than 24 hours, and it will prompt the user to resend or delete the message. Top |
January Microsoft Roadmap Update
In January 2021, Microsoft released various important updates. These updates covered a wide range of products like Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Microsoft Search, Microsoft Compliance center, etc.
The updates in January 2021 covered important aspects. Some of them gave administrators effective tools to drive higher productivity, whereas some of the updates offer more collaborative features to users. Certain enhancements now provide better task management and reporting capabilities. Some enhancements help organizations to enforce regulatory compliance, information security, information governance, and risk management.
| Description | Featured ID | Estimated Release | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Outlook on the Web: Admin can restrict users from search and insert GIFs | 64237 | January CY2021 | Added: 19 May 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft Outlook on the Web Outlook on the Web admins can now remove the option that allowed users to search and insert GIFs using the native controls in the ribbon. |
| Microsoft Teams: for RealWear | 65038 | January CY2021 | Added: 12 June 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft Teams Professionals using RealWear HMT-1 and HMT-1Z1 can now use the video calling feature of Microsoft Team to collaborate with a remote expert. Teams for RealWear now has a voice-controlled user interface, which allows field workers to remain hands-free while collaborating. This improves their safety in hazardous environments while they collaborate. |
| Microsoft Teams: Task publishing and reporting for frontline workers | 59719 | January CY2021 | Added: 1 December 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft Teams The Microsoft Teams task publishing and reporting features will now incorporate learnings from the experience of many managers and team members. These enhancements concern targeting, assigning, and completing activities. The Microsoft Teams features for headquarters reporting have been enhanced. Teams task publishing experiences for central offices now include corporate audit view to track tasks across frontline work locations. The frontline manager desktop view for task publishing now includes reporting and filters. The mobile views seen by the frontline workers now include reviews of tasks assigned. |
| Microsoft 365 Admin Center: Insider risk management solution rolled out for government clouds | 64187 | January CY2021 | Added: 14 May 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft 365 Admin Center The Microsoft 365 Admin Center has been enhanced with the following insider risk management features added to government clouds: The use of Office indicators (Teams, SharePoint sites, email messaging) for determining a risk score for users; The ability to use risk factors like data theft by departing users and general data leaks for defining risk activities; The capability to access and investigate insider risk management alerts; The use of content explorer to investigate insider risk management cases; Notice templates to facilitate actions on insider risk management cases; The ability to escalate insider risk management cases to Microsoft Advanced eDiscovery. |
| Microsoft Teams: Extension of the data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities in Microsoft 365 government cloud to Microsoft Teams | 65383 | January CY2021 | Added: 26 June 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft Teams The data loss prevention (DLP) capabilities of the Microsoft 365 government cloud now extends to Microsoft Teams chats and channel messages. This extension of DLP capabilities covers private chat messages. Organizations that already use DLP can now define policies to prevent the loss of sensitive information on Microsoft Teams. E.g., organizational policies can now prevent users from sharing sensitive information on Microsoft Teams chats or channels. |
| Microsoft 365: Roll out of trainable content classifier for information protection and governance | 65764 | January CY2021 | Added: 7 July 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft 365 The roll-out of a trainable content classifier will help organizations to recognize various kinds of content with the help of Machine Learning (ML). Organizations can train the content classifier by feeding different kinds of content. Users of Microsoft 365 can give content classified by human beings to the content classifier, and they can test its classification capabilities. They can fine-tune the machine learning content classification models or create their own. Organizations can use the tested classifier to categorize content by assigning them appropriate sensitivity levels. Such classification of content will enable organizations to formulate information protection policies and data retention policies. |
| Microsoft Search: Microsoft Search results on SharePoint and Office.com includes PowerBI results | 67103 | January CY2021 | Added: 17 August 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft 365 Microsoft Search results on SharePoint and Office.com now includes PowerBI results. Users of SharePoint and Office.com can search for PowerBI artifacts, e.g., reports, dashboards, workspaces, etc. PowerBI results with Microsoft Search on SharePoint and Office.com allows users to use keywords, and the results will display in a new PowerBI vertical. |
| OneDrive: Create shared libraries | 67163 | January CY2021 | Added: 30 September 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: OneDrive This update changes the user experience while creating new shared libraries from OneDrive on the web. Users can now create collaborative spaces with greater ease. |
| Microsoft Teams: Changes to meeting chat moderation settings | 67175 | January CY2021 | Added: 7 October 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft Teams Meeting organizers in Microsoft Teams can turn off the chat functionality when conducting a meeting. Earlier, the chat functionality was turned on by default during Microsoft Teams meetings. |
| Microsoft Compliance Center: Managing regulatory records | 68712 | January CY2021 | Added: 15 October 2020 Status: Launched App / Service: Microsoft Compliance center Users of SharePoint Online can now declare items as regulatory items. Microsoft Compliance center now provides them the ability to assign stringent labels. Users can assign various labels to content, e.g., regulatory, legal, business-critical, etc. This helps organizations to effectively implement their records management policies. Top |