Microsoft made over 100 updates and announcements in the month of November 2023 for the Microsoft 365 platform. Don’t have time to read them all? We’ve gone through all of them and put together what we feel are the most important updates for you to be aware of.
Customers who have Syntex pay-as-you-go licenses will have the ability to enable Syntex eSignature for SharePoint Online sites. A requester will be able to generate a request for signature from a PDF document. Once the document has collected all the required signatures, the signed copy is saved to the originating folder, and the sender is notified of the completion by email. User access to this service can be restricted by specific libraries within sites, and conditional access can be used to determine if external recipients can sign documents. The current settings include a 30-day expiration of the signature request link, the ability for the sender to cancel a request, and adherence to document retention policies set up by the SharePoint or tenant admin. This feature will start rolling out in November 2023 through Q1 of 2024.
Microsoft is introducing a new people experiences category in Adoption Score in the Microsoft 365 admin center. The new category helps organizations understand the adoption of Microsoft Copilot features in Microsoft 365. This AI assistance category includes a score on a 100-point scale to help track the overall adoption of Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365. This score for the AI assistance category will be available in preview and will not impact the overall Adoption Score.
Microsoft Ignite 2023 showcased the company’s vision and innovation in AI and Copilot, which are designed to empower people and organizations to achieve more in the hybrid work era. These announcements demonstrate Microsoft’s commitment to delivering AI and Copilot solutions across all of their products, with a focus on secure, accessible, and responsible solutions.
Some of the highlights include:
- The reintroduction of Power Virtual Agents rebranded as Microsoft Copilot Studio
- The expansion of Copilot for Microsoft 365, which is now generally available for enterprises and embedded in Microsoft 365 apps
- The launch of Microsoft Security Copilot, an AI solution within Microsoft Defender that automates threat detection, response, and remediation
- The launch of Microsoft Loop, a new app that enables teams to collaborate on dynamic and interactive documents that combine text, tables, diagrams, and code
Microsoft has updated their In Development page for Intune. This page lists all of the upcoming changes. The latest updates lists various new capabilities and features, such as Windows MAM for GCC and DoD environments, Company Portal SSO support for macOS, variables to use in compliance email notifications, and much more.
This is a feature in Microsoft Syntex's new Pay-as-you-go offerings, allowing organizations to save on storage costs by archiving inactive sites in SharePoint that exceed quote limits. The rollout is set to begin in November, with completion expected by early December 2023. SharePoint admins and Global admins can select and archive inactive sites through the SharePoint admin center or PowerShell. Archived sites incur storage charges based on consumption and will be subtracted from active storage, which will reduce overall storage costs. End-users will lose access to archived site content but sites can be reactivated by an admin if needed. Organizations should identify potential candidates for archiving and be prepared to enable the feature in the Microsoft 365 admin center when released.
Microsoft has announced the release of a new Data Loss Prevention (DLP) simulation mode which was scheduled for release in preview by the end of November. Once avaialable in preview, the simulation mode experience can be enabled from the DLP settings page. The new simulation mode provides admins with an advanced option for testing, validating and tuning DLP policies. A key highlight is that it helps build confidence in the policy efficacy and can potentially reduce the time to policy enforcement.
This DLP feature is being introduced in a way that does not impact existing policy enforcement and testing. Additionally, any alerts generated from policies running in simulation will be limited to the DLP simulation experience and not included in the DLP alerts page to prevent disruption to production workflows.
