August 2018 Office 365 Updates

Information

YouTube

Each installment of the series is published on YouTube to the Office 365 Update Series Playlist (https://aka.ms/o365update-youtube) which is part of the Office Videos Channel (https://www.youtube.com/user/officevideos).

Blog

The companion blog at http://aka.ms/o365update-blog hosts this document and articles related to this video series.

Transcript

Introductory Comments

Welcome to the Office 365 update for August of 2018.

In the next few minutes I’ll be giving you a quick rundown of the latest Office 365 updates, with the goal of helping you get the most out of the service.

First, I want to thank all the viewers who took the time to participate in last month’s survey. Your responses helped me better understand who you are and what you like most about this video series. My team and I are looking closely at the survey results, especially your comments, and will be looking for ways to make this video series even more valuable to you.

Now on to the updates.

Microsoft Whiteboard

Source: Office 365 Blog: Microsoft Whiteboard is now generally available for Windows

Products: Microsoft Whiteboard

In the January Update video, I covered the Microsoft Whiteboard Preview app, a freeform digital canvas where people, ideas, and content can come together for creative collaboration. On July 12th the Office team announced the Whiteboard app had moved out of preview and is now generally available on Windows 10.

Whiteboard provides an infinite canvas where imagination has room to grow. You can easily draw, write, and add images and virtual sticky notes to organize your ideas. Designed for pen, touch, and keyboard, Whiteboard enables you to share your ideas naturally, in whichever form you prefer. Teammates can huddle around a large touchscreen in the same room or work together on their own devices from around the world.

With the Whiteboard app, your brainstorming sessions are saved automatically to the cloud, so you can pick up where you left off, whenever and wherever inspiration strikes. And because the canvas expands along with your creations, you never have to worry about running out of space.

To start using Whiteboard on your Windows 10 device, download the app for free at the Microsoft Store and log in with your Microsoft account or your Office 365 account. And be sure to visit the blog article I link to in the transcript and resources guide for more information on availability on iOS and the web.

OneDrive

Source: OneDrive Blog: OneDrive Message Center Updates July 1st-15th

The OneDrive Activity Center is your go-to place to see the status of the OneDrive desktop client or to customize your sync experience. In mid-July, the OneDrive team started rolling out a new, updated OneDrive Activity Center to improve clarity and ease of use.

One feature that I particularly like is the new option for conserving battery life on Windows devices. The OneDrive desktop client will now automatically pause sync whenever a device switches to “battery saver” mode.

Of course, you’ll have the option to ‘Sync anyway’, which will un-pause the sync client. If you allow sync to remain paused, OneDrive will auto-resume the sync once it detects that the device is no longer in “battery saver” mode.

Many improvements to the sync client, like this one, came from users like you, and the OneDrive team wants to hear your feedback. Once you have the updated sync client, you’ll find a new “Send feedback” link in the OneDrive preferences menu. In addition to providing feedback on what you like and don’t like, you can click on “I have a suggestion” and you’ll be taken directly to the OneDrive UserVoice site where you can submit a new idea or upvote an existing one.

My Analytics Nudges

Source: Microsoft 365 Blog: Introducing W orkplace Analytics solutions and MyAnalytics nudges

Microsoft Docs: MyAnalytics nudges in Outlook

MyAnalytics is a personalized set of metrics that helps you find opportunities to build better habits and take control of your time. And who doesn’t want to do that? It gives you insights into how you spend your time and provides tips that help you work smarter.

A new feature called MyAnalytics Nudges offers friendly, data-driven collaboration tips as you work in Office 365. For example, much of my work, including researching topics for this video series, requires focused and undivided attention. As I receive new meeting invitations on my already busy calendar, a MyAnalytics Nudge gives me a gentle reminder to set aside time for focused work before accepting the meeting invitation. I can see available time blocks on my calendar and reserve them for focused work without ever leaving my inbox.

Additional MyAnalytics Nudges help you collaborate more effectively in other ways, such as:

Running more effective meetings,
reducing your after-hours impact on your coworkers, and
staying on top of your unread email and to-do items.

MyAnalytics is included with Office 365 Enterprise E5 and is also available as an add-on with select plans. These new MyAnalytics nudges are currently available in preview for customers using both Workplace Analytics and MyAnalytics. The Nudges will be rolling out in stages over the summer to enterprise customers using Outlook for the Web. What is Workplace Analytics, you ask? We’ll be covering that in just a few minutes.

Kaizala

Source: Office International Blog: Microsoft Kaizala mobile application now available in up to 18 languages

Office Products: Microsoft Kaizala

I know many of you work outside of an office environment, without direct access to a desktop or laptop computer. Most salespeople, machine operators, and field technicians, rely on their phones to stay connected to headquarters.

Microsoft Kaizala is a new mobile app you might start hearing about. It addresses the needs of these workers. It makes it easy to communicate and get work done out in the field, all on your iPhone or Android device. Kaizala gives field workers access to the tools they need to stay informed and work efficiently. The app makes it easy to get announcements from the main office, send feedback via polls or surveys, and chat with others workers either one-on-one or in groups.

Kaizala makes it easy to see where everyone is to coordinate work effectively. Its unique location-awareness feature makes it easy to request location information from others, send your geo-tagged location, or take and send a picture with the location auto-tagged.

The Kaizala team built the app on three core pillars:

The first is communication. It makes it easy to connect with large groups of people both inside and outside an organization.
The second pillar is work management. Kaizala simplifies the coordination of tasks for common work scenarios, and provides insights through advanced reporting.
The final pillar is security & manageability. Kaizala adheres to rigorous standards for security, privacy, and compliance. It also enables admins to easily manage users and control access to sensitive data.

For additional information, click on the link to the Microsoft Kaizala page in the transcript and resources document. It contains case studies on how companies are using Kaizala to connect their people and grow their business. It also has links to download the Kaizala app for iPhone and Android.

Power BI

Source: Power BI Blog: Power BI Service and Mobile June Feature Summary

Back in January, the Power BI team made it easier for you to collaborate with your teammates and partners by announcing report sharing in the Power BI Service. Last month, they super charged this experience by enabling you to share reports with filters and slicers applied!

Up until now, you’d have to take a screenshot or explain the steps you took to configure the report to a filtered, custom view. Now, all you have to do is make sure the “Share with current filters and slicers” checkbox is selected in the Share pane, and the people will see the report with your filters and slicers applied.

Power BI reports are shared via an email that contains a URL to the report. If your recipients bookmark this URL, the linked report will retain the filters and slicers so the report will continue to display just as you intended.

Note that the feature is currently disabled for reports with custom visuals, but the Power BI is working hard to extend this new capability to all reports, including those with custom visuals.

Live Events

Source: Office 365 Blog: Announcing intelligent event capabilities in Microsoft 365

Microsoft Stream Blog: Microsoft Stream powers live events and brings intelligent video to Microsoft 365

Yammer Blog: Announcing intelligent event capabilities for Yammer in Office 365

Microsoft Teams Blog: Live events in Microsoft Teams

On July 12^th, Microsoft announced that live event capabilities will be coming to Microsoft Stream, Microsoft Teams, and Yammer. With this development, customers will be able to schedule, produce, and deliver live events more effectively for a variety of scenarios such as companywide events, leadership updates and more.

Live events enhance communities of any kind, by bringing people together around important moments or topics. While communities in Yammer foster two-way conversations, and Microsoft Teams enables team collaboration, live events enable you to effectively communicate news and updates to everyone across the organization, on any device.

Seamless integration across Office 365 means that you can use Microsoft Stream to deliver highly produced, studio-quality events that can be viewed in Microsoft Stream, Microsoft Teams, or Yammer, to reach the broadest audience possible.

As part of Microsoft’s commitment to empower people and organizations with artificial intelligence, commonly referred to as AI, a new set of intelligent features will soon be available in Microsoft Stream, including:

Speaker timelines that use facial detection to identify who is talking, so you can easily jump to a particular speaker in the recording;
speech-to-text and closed captions that capture the event in a readable form and make the content more accessible for everyone; and
transcript search and timecodes that let you quickly find moments that matter in a video.

There’s an in-depth overview of these new Stream features embedded in the July 12^th Office 365 Blog post, which includes a great overview for admins that covers controls for governing who can upload content and create new channels, and also how Microsoft Stream supports GDPR compliance.

Workplace Analytics

Source: Microsoft 365 Blog: Introducing Workplace Analytics solutions and MyAnalytics nudges

Microsoft: Workplace Analytics

New Workplace Analytics Feature Releases – July 2018

Microsoft Docs: Workplace Analytics

What MyAnalytics does for the individual, Workplace Analytics does for the organization. It identifies collaboration patterns that impact productivity, workforce effectiveness, and team engagement across the organization. On July 12^th, Microsoft unveiled Workplace Analytics solutions for teamwork. New team-focused dashboards in Workplace Analytics help enable you to:

Uncover collaboration challenges such as meeting overload or high after-hours workload;
inspiring teams to change through productivity insights and customized action plans; and
measuring and improving on a team’s action plan by assessing and tracking progress against goals over time.

Microsoft Workplace Analytics is available as an add-on to any Office 365 enterprise plan. You can learn more about Workplace Analytics, including how it safeguards your data, in the links provided in the transcript and resources guide.