This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 85559

When this will happen:

Rolling out starting in September for Targeted release and expected to be complete by end of November for Standard release

How this will affect your organization:

As this change begins rolling out, users in your organization will see the following updates:

• The briefing email, which currently surfaces important reminders from Cortana, will expand to also include personal productivity and wellbeing insights, learning recommendations, and more to help them prepare for the day and week ahead. It will be delivered in users’ inboxes early in the day from Microsoft Viva.
• The MyAnalytics digest email, which surfaces important insights to help users understand and improve their work habits over time, will be delivered in users’ inboxes near the start of the month from Microsoft Viva and will have a new subject: “Your monthly digest” to reflect its new monthly cadence and complement “Your daily briefing”. The monthly digest will aggregate insights across these four outcomes: focus, wellbeing, network, and collaboration.
• The Insights Outlook add-in, which offers actionable suggestions to help users stay on top of tasks and emails, strengthen their work relationships, plan time away from work, and achieve a better balance, will be retitled “Viva Insights” to complement the Viva Insights app in Teams.
• A new Viva Insights homepage will be discoverable at insights.viva.office.com as well as via the Microsoft 365 app launcher on Office.com in place of the MyAnalytics icon. This will surface key data-driven, privacy-protected insights to users with a MyAnalytics service plan.
• Microsoft 365 administrators will start to see new titles “Microsoft Viva Insights (formerly MyAnalytics)” and “Briefing email from Microsoft Viva” along with banners on the Microsoft 365 admin center for MyAnalytics and Briefing email, respectively, informing them of the upcoming brand change to Microsoft Viva.

Note: These updates will honor existing admin and user preferences and settings by default. No additional action is required from the users or administrators.

What you need to do to prepare:

Review and assess the impact for your organization. Additionally, you might consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate. Learn more about Microsoft Viva Insights, MyAnalytics, Briefing email, and how Microsoft protects your privacy.

View this message in the Microsoft 365 admin center

	Microsoft Teams: Enable Teams users to purchase app subscriptions through the Teams app store
	MC282989 | September 3 – At Build 2021 we announced the ability for Teams users to purchase third-party app subscriptions directly from the Teams app store. From within the store, users can view subscription plans offered and go through the checkout process to pay with a credit card.
	View more
	(Updated) Microsoft Lists: Sync your lists for improved performance and offline access
	MC261538 | September 3 – Updated September 03, 2021: We have updated the content below to provide additional clarity. Thank you for your feedback. Lists sync lets you work on your lists offline, improves performance on all kinds of networks, and helps alleviate list throttling. Common operations on lists, such as changing list views, sorting, filtering, and grouping will happen locally and finish quickly even on very large lists. All of these operations will continue to work when you are offline or lose your Internet…
	View more
	Play My Emails: Spotlight
	MC282784 | September 2 – This enhancement to the Play My Emails feature of Outlook Mobile identifies Spotlight Emails (emails deemed important) and prioritizes them to be read first before other email from the inbox.
	View more
	Insights in Microsoft 365 to become part of Microsoft Viva
	MC282545 | September 2 – In the coming months, personal productivity and wellbeing insights that are currently available to users via the daily briefing email, MyAnalytics digest email, and Insights Outlook add-in will be updated to reflect the Microsoft Viva brand. Microsoft Viva is a new employee experience platform that empowers people and teams to be their best from anywhere. Powered by Microsoft 365 and experienced in the flow of work through Microsoft Teams and Outlook, Microsoft Viva brings together…
	View more
	(Updated) We’re updating the Hybrid federated search
	Act by: October 1
	MC270671 | August 31 – Updated August 31, 2021: We have updated the content below to provided additional clarity. Thank you for your patience. We’re making some changes to the Hybrid federated search, also called inbound hybrid search, where user searches from the SharePoint in Microsoft 365 Search Center display hybrid results. As part of search modernization in Microsoft 365 we’re updating the infrastructure used by SharePoint Server’s Hybrid federated search. As part of the process, customers who are using the…
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	(Updated) Teams Meeting Recordings Auto-Expiration in OneDrive and SharePoint
	MC274188 | August 31 – Updated August 31, 2021: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Additionally, We have updated this post to correct the setting modification capability limitations and will provide an additional update when those limitations are corrected. As part of the evolution of the new Stream (built on SharePoint), we are introducing the meeting recording auto-expiration feature, which will automatically delete Teams recording files stored in OneDrive or SharePoint after a preset period of time. Note:…
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	(Updated) Retiring Teams mobile support for devices running on iOS version 13 and below
	MC280286 | August 31 – Updated August 31, 2021: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.We will be retiring the Teams mobile support on iOS version 13 and below. Instead we recommend that users upgrade to newer iOS builds, which is where we will continue to invest our development resources. We will also begin encouraging users to update to the newest version of Teams if they’re running builds older than 1 year.
	View more
	Replacement of SCOM Management Pack for Office 365
	MC281909 | August 30 – We apologize for not providing 30 days advanced notice, per our customer-committed process, regarding the replacement of the Office 365 Management Pack with the new and improved Microsoft System Center Operations Manager Management Pack for Microsoft 365 that’s available now for your use.Note: If your organization is not using System Center Operation Manager (SCOM) Management Pack (MP) for Office 365, you can safely disregard this message.
	View more

Additional updates

	Updated timing changes: Whiteboard on OneDrive for Business
	MC282992 | September 3 – Update: We want to inform you that the timing has shifted for the Microsoft Whiteboard move to OneDrive for Business storage which will integrate seamlessly across the suite, so you can create, share, discover, and manage whiteboards as easily as any Office document.Previously (April – MC253185), the opt-in period was set to complete in September and setting to default-on would complete in October.The below timing changes will provide additional preparation time for your tenant. Additionally,…
	View more
	Plan for Change: Intune APP/MAM moving to support Android 9 and higher
	MC282986 | September 3 – As mentioned in MC266487, with the upcoming release of Android 12, Intune app protection policies (APP, also known as MAM) for Android will be moving to support Android 9 (Pie) and higher on October 1, 2021. This change is to align with Office mobile apps for Android support of the last four major versions of Android. Based on your feedback, we have updated our support statement. We are doing our best to keeping your organization secure and protecting your users and devices, while aligning with…
	View more
	(Updated) Azure B2B Integration with SharePoint Online is now Generally Available
	MC256838 | September 3 – Updated September 03, 2021: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience. Azure B2B Integration with SharePoint Online and OneDrive is now generally available.This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 81955
	View more
	Upcoming Android 12 support for Microsoft Endpoint Manager
	MC282785 | September 2 – With the upcoming release of Android 12, we have been hard at work making sure Microsoft Intune customers are supported on the new OS release. Most app protection policies and mobile device management scenarios will continue to be fully compatible with Android 12. However, Google is making some significant changes in Android 12 that affect management capabilities available to Intune.
	View more
	Microsoft Forms: Manage and organize your forms and quizzes now
	MC282783 | September 2 – This new Forms feature release will allow users to manage and group all forms and quizzes as desired and in their own way, to efficiently archive and categorize their forms into collections.This is rolling out desktop, web and mobile.This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 70734.
	View more
	Microsoft Teams: Real time data for Teams Meetings in Teams Admin Center (Preview)
	MC282781 | September 2 – This new release (preview) of Real-time telemetry metrics for Admin will help you identify issues during a Teams meeting.Note: This feature will be available for all customers as part of the Teams preview. Beginning in January, 2022 the Advanced Communications add-on license will be required.This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 68758.
	View more
	New automation features available for Microsoft Intune setup guide
	MC282485 | September 1 – The Microsoft Intune setup guide provides guidance and resources for planning and deploying your tenant, apps, and services with Microsoft Intune. We have recently updated the guide to include the following configurations, see below for more details:Turn on Endpoint analyticsEndpoint analytics is part of the ‎Microsoft Endpoint Manager‎ and introduced as part of ‎Microsoft‎ Productivity Score. These analytics give you insights for measuring how your organization is working and the quality of…
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	SharePoint channel sites – Temporary permissions editing
	MC282480 | September 1 – We recently provided guidance (June – MC261534) “SharePoint: Updates for Microsoft Teams connected team sites” about how to edit permissions for SharePoint team sites that are connected to a channel in Microsoft Teams. In the post, we specified that the addition, removal, or the editing of permissions for a channel site would need to be done in Settings for the team in Teams. To allow team owners more time to adjust to this change, we have temporarily enabled (for the first three weeks of…
	View more
	Forms word cloud poll for Teams meeting
	MC282180 | August 31 – Microsoft Forms poll in Teams meeting, will soon have a new question type – word cloud. This question type can significantly improve your meeting engagement and involve everyone into the meeting. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 79497
	View more
	Introducing 2×2 gallery view for Teams meetings viewed in Safari browser
	MC282167 | August 31 – Safari browser will soon be able to display up to four participant videos (2×2) during a Teams meeting.This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 86513.
	View more
	(Updated) Microsoft 365 admin center: Reports in the Admin Center – user information pseudonymized by default
	MC275344 | August 31 – Updated August 31, 2021: We have updated the content below for clarity. Thank you for your feedback. We’re making some changes to Microsoft 365 Reports in the admin center. Reports found in the ‎Microsoft 365‎ admin center provide information about your organization’s usage data. By default, reports currently display information with identifiable names for users, groups, and sites. beginning next month, user information will now be hidden by default for all reports as part of our ongoing…
	View more
	Sensitivity Labels for Teams Created from Templates
	MC281936 | August 31 – Sensitivity labels allow Teams admins to protect and regulate access to sensitive organizational content created during collaboration within teams. With this update, you will be able to apply sensitivity labels to teams created from templates as well.This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 84232.
	View more

To view all announcements, sign in to Microsoft 365 admin center

Key points

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 85570.
• Timing: early October
• Roll-out: tenant level
• Control type: admin control
• Action: review and assess

How this will affect your organization:

Customers who listen to emails in Play My Emails on Outlook Mobile may, on occasion, experience a change to the order in which emails are read. Emails that may require the user to take action will be played first.

Note: No email content is transmitted or stored outside of your organization.

What you need to do to prepare:

You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

This is rolling out default on. This feature can be disabled by tenant admins by setting the following cmdlet to false:

• Set-OrganizationConfig -MessageHighlightsEnabled $true

View this message in the Microsoft 365 admin center

Note: If your organization is not using System Center Operation Manager (SCOM) Management Pack (MP) for Office 365, you can safely disregard this message.

When this will happen:

In early August, with the release of the Microsoft System Center Operations Manager Management Pack for Microsoft 365 we retired support for the System Center Operation Manager (SCOM) Management Pack (MP) for Office 365.

How this will affect your organization:

Users can no longer download and should not use this old MP. The MP will continue to work but will not be supported for any reported issues.

What you need to do to prepare:

We recommend you use the Microsoft System Center Operations Manager Management Pack for Microsoft 365, which is where we will continue to invest our development resources.

View this message in the Microsoft 365 admin center

	Retirement of (Azure AD) Graph and license assignment operations and updates to license management APIs and PowerShell
	Act by: June 30
	MC281145 | August 26 – Today, as communicated on Tech Community, we are providing a reminder that the end of support for Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Graph will be on June 30, 2022. Apps using Azure AD Graph after this time will no longer receive responses from the Azure AD Graph endpoint. Since the Azure AD Graph APIs are being retired, we are also retiring the license assignment operation in the MSOnline and Azure AD PowerShell modules.Note: If you don’t use Azure AD Graph API, do license management through…
	View more
	(Updated) PowerApps/PowerAutomate Retirement of Direct Links in the OneDrive for Business Connector
	Act by: September 25
	MC280012 | August 26 – Updated August 26, 2021: We have updated this post for additional clarity. Thank you for your feedback.Note: This only applies to Direct links in PowerApps/PowerAutomate. Using the Direct Link option in PowerApps/PowerAutomate does not provide the same experience as other services as the Direct links created expire after a short period of time. The ‘Direct’ link option is being retired because rather than creating sharing links it creates file download links, which do not reflect the scope…
	View more
	(Updated) Teams meeting invite recipients limit from Outlook
	MC259845 | August 26 – Updated August 26, 2021: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience. We’re making some changes to limit the number of individual recipients allowed for scheduling a Teams meeting from Outlook (Win32 and Win64 client only at this time). We will apply this limit for meetings created with more than 750 recipients in the invite. This limit does not apply to the content of Distribution Lists and therefore we encourage users to use Distribution Lists when inviting a large…
	View more
	Announcing PowerPoint modern comments for enterprise general availability
	MC280615 | August 24 – This release (currently in preview) will update the comments feature in PowerPoint to the new PowerPoint modern comments experience. Modern comments help improve users collaborative experience with features such as resolving comments, anchoring comments to objects and text, and improved @mentions.
	View more
	(Updated) Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Extending Secure by Default for Exchange Transport Rules (ETRs)
	MC265759 | August 24 – Updated August 24, 2021: We have updated the content for additional clarity. Thank you for your feedback. Microsoft believes it’s critical to keep our customers secure by default. We have determined that legacy overrides tend to be too broad and cause more harm than good. As a security service, we believe it’s imperative that we act on your behalf to prevent your users from being compromised. This means these legacy overrides will no longer be honored for email messages we believe are…
	View more
	Pairing naming convention between Teams channels and corresponding SharePoint folders
	MC280294 | August 23 – This new release will update the channel rename experience in Teams to simultaneously rename the corresponding folder in SharePoint sites whenever a channel in Teams is renamed. We are taking this step to eliminate the difficulty in tracking, across all Microsoft 365 endpoints, that occurs when a channel in Teams is renamed and the corresponding folder’s naming convention is not updated accordingly in SharePoint. This will rollout on Teams desktop and web.
	View more
	Important updates are available for Microsoft To Do apps
	Act by: October 31
	MC280287 | August 23 – If your organization does not use Microsoft To Do, you can disregard this message.We are moving Microsoft To Do’s backend to a more efficient service. For the best experience across all of your devices, you need to update to the latest version. Make sure your mobile and desktop To Do apps are version 2.49 or higher before end of October 2021 to avoid any issues with cross device syncing. Also since To Do tasks are also linked with Outlook Android and iOS apps. Please make sure that you update…
	View more
	Retiring Teams mobile support for devices running on iOS version 13 and below
	MC280286 | August 23 – We will be retiring the Teams mobile support on iOS version 13 and below. Instead we recommend that users upgrade to newer iOS builds, which is where we will continue to invest our development resources. We will also begin encouraging users to update to the newest version of Teams if they’re running builds older than 1 year.
	View more

Additional updates

	Outlook: Tone detection in Microsoft Editor for Outlook on the web
	MC281368 | August 27 – This new feature for Microsoft Editor in Outlook on the web will now offer writing refinements to suggest changes to tone. These suggestions will allow the user to communicate more clearly and in a desired tone to deter misinterpretation.This is rolling out on Outlook on the web. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 86539
	View more
	Announcing updated Send Feedback experience in mobile app
	MC281360 | August 27 – This new feature will allow users on Teams mobile app to share feedback directly from the Help & Feedback option in Settings, without needing to send an email message. You will also be able to control which elements (like email addresses, and logs) can be shared by users when sending feedback on the mobile app. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID:84004.
	View more
	(Updated) Power Apps can now display images from Microsoft Lists
	MC257468 | August 26 – Updated August 26, 2021: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience. Power Apps image controls can now display images that are stored in image columns in Microsoft Lists. Images can be displayed in four sizes: small, medium, large, or full.This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 81986
	View more
	Updates available for Microsoft 365 Apps for Current Channel
	MC281090 | August 26 – We’ve released updates to the following update channel for Microsoft 365 Apps: Current Channel
	View more
	Quarantine message preview enhancement
	MC280920 | August 25 – We’re changing the way users preview quarantined messages to provide additional security against embedded threats. With this change some components in quarantined messages will be distorted and not displayed by default. To see the full contents of the message, users can choose to reveal the full message. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 82098
	View more
	Teams is enabling diagnostic data viewing
	MC280919 | August 25 – In an upcoming release, Teams is enabling support for Diagnostic Data Viewer (DDV), which lets you review the raw diagnostic data from Teams your device is sending to Microsoft.
	View more
	Resource Specific Consent (RSC) for Chats and Meetings
	MC280917 | August 25 – Resource specific consent (RSC) for chats and meetings will allow participants in group chat and authorized users in meetings to authorize a Teams app (without requiring tenant admin consent) to follow messages exchanged in the meeting, manage members, pin tabs, provision apps, and much more – automatically based on the ongoing conversation in the meeting or any other signal. The app can do all this anytime during the entire lifecycle of the meeting – before/during and after. All of this, just…
	View more
	Microsoft 365 Records Management–Announcing public preview of adaptive policy scopes for retention and label policies
	MC280914 | August 25 – This new feature (preview), Adaptive policy scopes, will allow data administrators to scope retention policies and retention label policies to a dynamic set of users, SharePoint sites, or Microsoft 365 Groups. This is enabled by using the properties or attributes associated with these locations. Adaptive policy scopes work with all locations, including Exchange mailboxes, Microsoft 365 Groups, SharePoint sites, OneDrive accounts, Teams chats, channel messages (including private channels), and…
	View more
	(Updated) Refreshed Microsoft Whiteboard client experience coming soon
	MC279627 | August 25 – Updated August 25, 2021: We have updated the content below to show as intended. Thank you for your feedback.Microsoft Whiteboard is being updated to provide a new, unified experience across all devices, whether you’re on a large screen or a mobile phone. We’ve already shipped new, highly requested features to our web app, Android app and Teams clients, and there’s more on the way. As part of this new experience, we will also be updating our native applications on Windows 10, Surface Hub and iOS…
	View more
	(Updated) Live Captions and Live Transcript in Additional Spoken Language in Microsoft Teams Meetings
	MC280258 | August 24 – Updated August 24, 2021: We have updated the content for additional clarity. Thank you for your feedback. With this feature release, Microsoft Teams is expanding the language support for real-time captioning and real-time transcription. This message is associated with the following Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID’s: Microsoft Teams: Live Captions in additional spoken languages for Teams Meetings – 70593Microsoft Teams: Live transcript in Teams meetings in additional spoken languages – 83615
	View more
	(Updated) SharePoint Collapsible Sections
	MC266077 | August 24 – Updated August 24, 2021: We have updated the rollout timeline below. While in Targeted Release we received valuable feedback around the behavior of anchor links when used in collapsible sections as well as some formatting issues experienced by users of right-to-left languages. We feel that both of these issues are important for us to address prior to making the feature generally available. We are actively addressing these issues now and expect the solution to reach General Availability with all…
	View more
	(Updated) New default native notification setting for new Teams users
	MC271919 | August 24 – Updated August 24, 2021: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience. With this change the default Notification Style (specifically for new users) will change to Native Notifications from Teams Built In. This will apply across Windows and Mac. NOTE: The current default notification style for new users is Teams Built In. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 83062
	View more
	(Updated) 1:1 VOIP and PSTN call recording and transcription in Calls App V2
	MC279469 | August 24 – Updated August 24, 2021: We have updated the content to show as intended. Thank you for your feedback. Microsoft Teams will now release ability to record and transcribe 1:1 VOIP and PSTN calls and show the recording and transcription in Call history in the calls details panel. This is a critical feature specifically for our Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) customers. In absence of chat, PSTN callees do not have a way to view call recordings and transcriptions. This message is associated…
	View more
	(Updated) End-to-end encryption for Teams calling
	MC259495 | August 24 – Updated August 24, 2021: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience. End-to-end encryption is the encryption of information at its origin and decryption at its intended destination without the ability for intermediate nodes to decrypt. Teams will support an option to use end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for ad hoc 1:1 Teams VoIP calls. To support customer security and compliance requirements, IT will have full control of who can use E2EE in the organization. This…
	View more
	(Updated) SharePoint News Boost
	MC271075 | August 24 – Updated August 24, 2021: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience. This new feature will allow you to prioritize important news and announcements at the top of news feeds across Microsoft 365. Additionally, you can even prioritize visibility of a news article for a set time that you can control. This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 70810.
	View more
	(Updated) Microsoft Exchange Online – Configuration Change for online meetings by default
	MC267584 | August 24 – Updated August 24, 2021: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience. Whether you’re working from home or meeting with people in other locations, we will be making a change so that all meetings created in Outlook will automatically be online to allow everyone to attend. This will rollout on desktop, web, mobile and Mac.This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 81995.
	View more
	(Updated) Registration available for View Only Attendees
	MC271632 | August 24 – Updated August 24, 2021: An issue was found during testing and we will need to delay shipment of the feature. We will provide an updated timeline via Message center when we are ready to proceed. Thank you for your patience. View-Only Attendees are now able to register for your Webinars as a normal attendee would. Previously, View-Only Attendees did not have registration support.
	View more
	Teams admin center: Left navigation improvements
	MC280292 | August 23 – The left navigation in Teams admin center will be reorganized to make it easier for you to find content and navigate through Teams admin center.This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 83320
	View more
	Dynamic e911 for US WFH users
	MC280290 | August 23 – Dynamic e911 provides the ability to dynamically detect a Teams user’s location for emergency calling. Today, e911 is available for users in admin configured locations on enterprise networks only. With this new feature, we will extend the capability to users working remotely from other dynamic locations.This is rolling out on Teams desktop, web and mobile.Note: The release of this feature supports compliance to the United States FCC requirements for Ray Baum’s Act, and is not intended for use…
	View more
	In Preview: Microsoft 365 now includes the core functionalities of Visio
	MC280285 | August 23 – In this feature update (preview), we are adding Visio in Microsoft 365 commercial plans for your tenant users at no additional cost. Visio in Microsoft 365 comes with a web app that offers core functionalities of Visio and allows users to create, edit, and share professional diagrams and integrates with a variety of Microsoft solutions, including Microsoft Teams, for a collaborative diagramming experience.This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID:72235.
	View more

To view all announcements, sign in to Microsoft 365 admin center

Since the Azure AD Graph APIs are being retired, we are also retiring the license assignment operation in the MSOnline and Azure AD PowerShell modules.

Note: If you don’t use Azure AD Graph API, do license management through MSOnline/AzureAD PowerShell, or manage licenses for your organization, you can safely disregard this message.

Key points

• Timing: June 30, 2022
• Control type: user control / admin control
• Action: review, assess and update existing applications to access the license assignment APIs from the Microsoft Graph endpoint and update your scripts to use license assignment cmdlets from the Microsoft Graph PowerShell module to reduce the impact on operations. Other operations in the MSOnline and Azure AD PowerShell modules won’t be impacted.

Below are some of the operations that will no longer receive a successful response beginning on June 30, 2022.

What’s next: New license management platform:

The current license management features have grown to address the needs of our customers, with key innovations like group-based licensing. But as the needs of our customers have evolved, we decided to rebuild online services licensing platform from the ground up. Below is an early look into future changes to the platform, designed with four key goals in mind:

1. Flexibility: Expanding beyond a single administration structure, single megalithic pool of seats, or even a single tenant.
2. Simplicity: Reducing unnecessary complexity and simplify getting your licenses to your users.
3. Speed: Gaining quick access to what you’ve purchased.
4. Accuracy: Reflecting what you have purchased and the licenses you have available to assign.

Realizing the entire vision will take time, today we are sharing the first milestone in this journey. Starting in the first quarter of 2022, customers can opt-in to use the new license management platform. Here are the features you will see as part of this milestone:

• Allotments will help you separate your licenses into smaller batches so you can set limits on how many licenses are used, and delegate ownership to manage them.
• Group licensing will be extended. In the new licensing platform, Azure AD Premium or Office 365 E3 will no longer be required to use group-based licensing for license assignments. In addition, nested groups will now work for license assignments.
• New license types, including device-based licenses and ISV app licensing, will work natively on the new platform.

In the future, look forward to hearing more about the new license management platform via MC communications, including how to get started using it and details on new API and PowerShell options to leverage the new features.

View this message in the Microsoft 365 admin center

Key points:

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 82731.
• Timing:
  • Targeted release (entire org and specific users): will begin rolling out in early September and expect to complete rollout late October.
  • Standard release: will begin rolling out in late October and expect to complete rollout late January.
• Roll-out: entire org and user level
• Control type: admin control
• Action: read over the tenant admin and end user-facing documentation to understand all expected changes.

How this will affect your organization:

The new modern comments experience will affect files where the first comment was added after your organization has the tenant admin setting enabled. Existing files with comments will not be affected

Modern comments can’t be read by PowerPoint 2019 or older, including subscription and perpetual versions. End users will be notified about unsupported comments in their presentations, with a prompt to open the file in PowerPoint for the web to review the modern comments. A full breakdown of experience by PowerPoint version is available in the tenant admin documentation.

The new commenting experience answers several popular feature requests and significantly improves collaboration.

• A comment will now anchor to objects. If users move the object, the comment moves with it.
• Comments can now be anchored to text. This feature will be rolling out to Production Windows and Mac builds between June and August of 2021. Users on web and Insiders builds may have this feature earlier.
• Comments in the margins on web. Comments will appear to the right of user’s slides by default on web, keeping their comments closer to their content.
• Users can now mark threads of comments as resolved. Resolved comments won’t appear in the margin but can still be seen in the Comments Pane.
• Modern comments can only be edited by the person who created them.
• Improved notification emails let recipients see the context of the comment and reply directly from the email.

PowerPoint modern comments are available today behind a tenant admin setting which is off by default.

• This update will change the default setting from off to on.

Anchoring comments with text

Show advanced markup

What you need to do to prepare:

The following steps are recommended to prepare for this change:

• Understand the experience on different versions of PowerPoint via the table provided in the tenant admin documentation. Determine if this experience is suitable for the needs of your organization.
• This update will roll out to end users according to their channel. This means different users in your organization may be on different comment experiences until rollout is complete across all channels. If you’d like your tenant to turn on modern comments all at once, please enable the feature via OCPS or group policy.
• If you’ve already explicitly set the PowerPoint modern comments tenant admin setting, that state will be respected. If you do not wish to receive this update, please make sure this feature is set to off in your tenant admin settings.
  • If you decide to disable the feature, we’d love to understand more about why. You can send us feedback at [email protected].

Additional Information
View this message in the Microsoft 365 admin center

We are moving Microsoft To Do’s backend to a more efficient service. For the best experience across all of your devices, you need to update to the latest version. Make sure your mobile and desktop To Do apps are version 2.49 or higher before end of October 2021 to avoid any issues with cross device syncing. Also since To Do tasks are also linked with Outlook Android and iOS apps. Please make sure that you update your Outlook android and iOS apps as well.

Key points

• Timing: Before October 31, 2021
• Roll-out: tenant level
• Action: Update Microsoft To Do apps (Android, iOS, Windows and Mac) and Outlook apps(Android and iOS) to the latest available version before October 31, 2021.

How this will affect your organization:

After October 2021, To Do app versions 2.48 or below will no longer sync across devices, but you’ll still be able to use To Do in offline mode. After October 2021, you can keep your To Do apps syncing by updating your apps to the latest version. If you log out before updating to version 2.49 or higher, you will lose all un-synced data.

What you need to do to prepare:

Please make sure you update your To Do apps(Android, iOS, Windows and Mac) and Outlook apps(Android and iOS) to the latest available version before 31st October 2021. Update your To Do apps to the latest version in the appropriate app store.

• For desktop versions of To Do, visit Windows Store or Mac App Store.
• For mobile versions of To Do, visit the Google Play Store or iOS Store.

Learn More

Additional Information
View this message in the Microsoft 365 admin center

Key points

• Timing: The retirement will begin in early October and is expected to complete by mid-October.
• Action: Instead of using iOS 13 or below, we recommend updating to OS versions 14 and above.

How this will affect your organization:

You are receiving this message because one or more users in your organization might be using iOS mobile devices that are running on version 13 or lower.

The exiting Teams build 3.17.0 will continue to work on iOS 13 devices but there won’t be any app updates going forward. In addition to this, you will not be able to reinstall the build from the app store if you uninstall Teams or reset your device.

Additional Information
View this message in the Microsoft 365 admin center

If no users in your tenant are using the Direct Link option you can safely disregard this message.

Key points

• Timing: Beginning September 25, 2021 we will start retiring the Direct Link option while using the ‘Create sharing link’ action in the OneDrive for Business connector in Power Apps and Power Automate
• Control type: user control / admin control
• Action: review, assess and update your apps and flows per the below directions

What you need to do to prepare:

If you are currently using the Direct link option, you have until September 25, 2021 to fix your apps and flows. After that, the action will return an error message. In order to create a long-lived Sharing Link as intended, please select “View” or “Edit” as the Link Type rather than “Direct”.

Learn more about the connector:

• OneDrive for Business

View this message in the Microsoft 365 admin center