This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Bringing personal features in Microsoft Teams to desktop and web—now available in preview
By Arjun Tomar, Product Marketing Manager, Microsoft 365
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, it’s become a challenge for many of us to balance the various aspects of our lives. Whether it’s our jobs, homeschooling our kids, or coordinating virtual meetups with friends, managing all of this on a daily basis can get stressful. As a result, tools that help us stay on track and free up time for recharging have become more and more critical. Ever since we expanded Microsoft Teams beyond work and school and announced the preview of personal features in the Teams mobile app, I have found it helpful to organize and plan activities in my day-to-day life. From using tasks to track my grocery shopping list to scheduling virtual birthday celebrations, Teams has become my all-in-one hub for organizing my personal life.
Today, we are excited to announce the preview of more new personal features in Teams that will make it even easier to manage and plan your days. To begin with, you can now add your personal account in the Teams desktop or web app to chat with or call friends and family. With group chat and video calling now available on both desktop and mobile, connecting and organizing with loved ones will be easier than ever before, especially with holidays around the corner. We are also adding new features in preview in the Teams mobile app, such as the ability to chat with friends or family who don’t have Teams on their phones1, location alerts that let you know when someone leaves or arrives at designated locations2, and more.
Chat and call friends and family—right from your desktop
Since most people started working from home, the time we spend on our computers has risen dramatically. If you use your computer to send work emails and your phone to chat with friends and family, it can become difficult to keep track of incoming messages across all your devices. We want to make it easier for you to stay on top of your important communications—across your work and personal life—without having to constantly switch between devices. Now, you can add your personal account in the Teams desktop or web app and sync all your chats to your computer so you can carry on conversations on whatever device you prefer. Plus, you can use the Teams desktop or web app to call friends and family, even if they don’t have Teams installed, making it easier to connect with loved ones during the holidays. Your work and personal accounts open in different windows or browser tabs on your computer, making it easy to keep them separate.
The following features are now available in preview in the Teams desktop and web apps, with more features coming soon:
Start a personal chat or create a group chat with up to 250 people.
Seamlessly sync your existing chats from your phone to your computer and carry-on conversations on the device of your choice.
Talk all day for free with friends and family via video or audio calls.3
Share video meeting invites with anyone, even if they don’t have Teams, and see up to 49 of your friends and loved ones in one frame in Gallery view or Together mode.
Upload and share photos and videos from your computer in any personal or group chat.
To start using personal features in Teams on your computer, follow these steps:
If you are new to Teams, download the Teams desktop app and sign in with a personal Microsoft account or create a new one to get started.
If you currently use the Teams desktop app at work, click on your profile picture on the top-right corner and select ‘Add personal account’. Upon successful login, Teams will launch a new window containing your personal chats and groups so it’s easy to switch between your work and personal accounts.
Note: We are slowly rolling out the option to add a personal account to existing commercial users. So, if you don’t see this option to add your personal account, you may have to wait until your app is updated or for your IT admin to enable it within your organization.
If you want to use the personal features in Teams in your web browser, go to this link and sign in or create a new personal Microsoft account to get started.
While you can use the Teams desktop and web apps to chat with or call friends and family, we are working on bringing all the other personal features available in the Teams mobile app to desktop and web soon.
Adding more features in preview on the Teams mobile app
We are also introducing new features in preview in the Microsoft Teams mobile app to make it easier to stay connected with loved ones.
Chat with people in Teams, even if they are not using the app
When starting a group chat with your friends or family, you shouldn’t have to worry about whether they will miss your chats if they don’t have Teams. This is why we are previewing a new feature on our Teams iOS and Android apps that allows you to chat with contacts who don’t have Teams installed on their phones. Simply type a contact’s name or phone number to add them to a group chat and, if they are not on Teams, they can receive and send replies to the group via SMS, keeping the conversation flowing1. SMS participants will also get a link to download the Teams app on their phone making it easy to get started on Teams and take full advantage of rich media messaging and chat via GIFs, images, or videos.
Get notified when loved ones leave or arrive at a location
As we all begin to responsibly step out of our homes, we are releasing new location features in preview that will make it easier for your loved ones to receive updates about your physical whereabouts. Starting today, you can allow your loved ones to receive automatic alerts whenever you leave or arrive at a designated location2. So, if you are stepping out of your home on a daily basis, you can choose to let your family get automatic departure or arrival alerts so that they know when you will be back home.
In addition to these, we are also introducing the following new mobile features:
Add group events from your chats to your device’s calendar.
Get task and location updates in your activity feed.
Add a photo to your personal Safe.
The new features have started to roll out in preview on the Teams mobile app and will be fully rolled out in the coming weeks. To get started, download the Teams mobile app from the iOS or Android app store.
We are excited about continuing to preview more features in Teams that make it easier for you to organize and manage your personal life. While today is another step in that direction, we are continuing our efforts to bring even more features to you across all devices as we work towards making these features generally available. As always, we value your inputs during this journey, and we look forward to receiving your feedback.
Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
By: Laura Arrizza – Program Manager and Spencer Shumway – Program Manager | Microsoft Endpoint Manager – Intune
We are introducing two new reports in the policy configuration space within Microsoft Endpoint Manager to help IT admins troubleshoot where failures may occur across their device configuration profiles and compliance policies. You will be able to use the two reports to see where conflicts and errors are occurring, with the ability to narrow it down to the device and setting level to identify where the issues lie.
In addition, there are a few general reporting infrastructure announcements that customers should be aware of when using all new reports. We’ve called these out at the end of this blog post.
Customers can navigate to the “Monitor” section under the “Devices” node to see two new operational reports under the Configuration and Compliance headers. The “Assignment failures (preview)” report shows device configuration data, and the “Noncompliant policies (preview)” report shows compliance policy data.
Both reports follow a similar structure where the first view of the report shows the list of policies in your environment and the count of devices in a state of failure. The “Assignment failures” report shows the aggregate number of devices in a state of error or conflict, with the ability to filter by profile type and platform. The “Noncompliant policies” report shows the aggregate number of devices in a state of noncompliant or error, with the ability to filter by platform.
Throughout both reports, you can use the upgraded grid controls to search, sort, and filter across all the records. We have included easier page controls and faster export to a zip file containing the csv records of the report view. In addition, the records will be updated automatically to refresh the data within approximately 20 minutes.
From the first view of the report, you can select the policy or profile that has devices in a failure state. This will navigate to the second level of the report showing the list of device/user combinations that are in the failure state with its status. The number of records in view may be higher than the first aggregate since the records are based on a per device per user basis.
Admins have the same capabilities for the upgraded grid controls on this view and the ability to export the information locally. The report can also add extra columns to see extended Azure AD user information or device ID information.
After viewing the devices and users in failure, you can select the device/user record to view all the settings applied on the device from the selected policy. Here, admins can easily see which settings are in an error or conflict state which is causing failure in the first place. Selecting the setting record will open the setting details context pane which provides more insight into troubleshooting. If the setting is in a state of error, the error code can help identify what the error is. If the setting is in a state of conflict, the “source profiles” table can help identify which other profiles are causing the conflict.
Figure 5. Profile Setting Error
Overall, the new reports aim to help streamline the troubleshooting process for admins to identify where failures are occurring across their policies and drill down to the setting level to understand how to mitigate.
Known Issues in Public Preview
The new reports are available in public preview with some known issues that the team will work out before removing the preview tags. See below:
Administrative template profiles are not supported in the Assignment Failures report.
Certificate profile types will have settings may appear as “#” in the report view.Work is in progress on how to report status for certificate profiles.
Specific RBAC roles have access to the reports:
Global administrator
Profile Manager (Built in Role)
Compliance Read-Only Admin
If an admin creates a new scope tag to be applied to the reports, it can take up to 24 hours for the scope tag to take effect. In that time, the policies that are affected by the scope tag may be removed from view in the interim period.
The setting details pane on the third level of the reports currently only show the error code information if the setting is in error. The string version for the “Error details” is not yet available.
Existing Policy Reports and Roadmap
These two new reports are part of the effort toimprove the policy reports across theconsole.As these are additive reportswith fresher data, therecords and numbers shown across the consolein existing reports may be slightly different (i.e.,“Assignment Status” and “Policy Compliance” reports). We encourage you to try out the new reportsand usetheexisting ones foradditional information.
You willcontinue to seeimprovements to the policy reporting spaceover the next few months.This includesadding security baseline and endpoint security records to the new “Assignment Failures” report,replacing older reports with new organizational ones, and ensuring consistency across the console.
Stay tuned for more updates on the What’s New andthrough thisTechCommunityblog!
ReportingAnnouncementsforUpcoming Changes:
Change to the default columns in Devices Export API call
Localization changes for data export
New Azure Monitor diagnostic setting that maps the Devices list
Change to the default columns in Devices Export API call
NOTE:This change only affects those using our newReportingExportGraphAPIwithout any column selections. UI export,which is the more typical way to export the All Devices list,is not affected by this upcoming change.
When you make a request with no select columns provided:
you will receive the default column set. This default column set for the devices report contained some columns that were either not user friendly, not useful, or confusing. We will be removing those columns from the default column list starting December 2020. The columns being removed are listed here:
PhoneNumberE164Format
_ComputedComplianceState
_OS
OSDescription
These columns will still be available for selection if you need them, but only explicitly, and not by default. If you have built automation around the default columns of the device export when using the exportJobs API, and that automation uses any of these columns, you need to refactor your processes to explicitly select these and any other relevant columns like this:
As many customers have noticed, we provide localized and non-localized column information with almost all report exports. It looks something like this for any given column that contains localizable data:
ComplianceState
ComplianceState_loc
0
Not evaluated
0
Not evaluated
2
Not compliant
0
Not evaluated
2
Not compliant
2
Not compliant
0
Not evaluated
0
Not evaluated
0
Not evaluated
2
Not compliant
0
Not evaluated
0
Not evaluated
2
Not compliant
The human readable/localized values are provided in the _loc column, while the actual column contains the enum/dev string values. These enum/dev string values are used to interact with the API and are less likely to change, which make them ideal for automation.
In contrast to this approach, we have a few export experiences that provide only the human readable/localized string data, which looks like this:
OS
Windows
Windows
Windows
Windows
Windows
Android
Android
Android
Android
iOS
iOS
iOS
iOS
We recognize that some customers prefer this approach, especially to avoid column re-mapping when taking data to external tools/sources for reporting.
Currently there is no way to configure which experience you will receive in regard to localization, as each report has a built-in default behavior that remains static. In the future, we are working to add the capability to specify the localization experience you prefer. If you have strong thoughts or feelings about what the new behaviors and defaults should be, or have existing issues with localization, just respond back on this blog post or tag @IntuneSuppTeam out on Twitter!
New Azure Monitor diagnostic setting that maps the Devices list
Wehave recently enabled a newAzure Monitor Diagnostic setting called Devicesforour internal testing. This testingprecedestherelease of a newDevicescategorythat maps to theAllDeviceslist inMicrosoft Endpoint manager admin center. While the setting is visibleand can be configured,we will not publish data to your Azure monitor subscription until we officially enable the setting early next year. We do not recommend enabling this setting until that time. As always, let us know if you have questionson this setting byreplying backon this post or tagging @IntuneSuppTeam out on Twitter!
Total reports supported by our new infrastructure:
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Another busy week for cloud services at Microsoft. Here are the news items the team at AzUpdate are covering this week: New Priority Account capabilities now available in Microsoft 365, Azure Bastion and VNet peering can be used together, New integrations between GitHub and Azure Policy allow for better manage policy definitions and assignments, New constrained vCPUs capable VMs now available and of course the Microsoft Learn module of the week.
New Priority Account capabilities now available in Microsoft 365
Executives, leaders, managers, and other personnel are considered priority accounts for IT requiring added effort to ensure uptime and confirmation of service. To address this need, Microsoft has introduced capabilities in Microsoft 365 enabling an admin to tag specific users as priority accounts and then leverage app-specific features designed for them. These 2 capabilities include:
Priority account protection:Microsoft Defender for Office 365 now supports priority accounts as system tags that can be used in filters in alerts, reports, and investigations.
Premium mail flow monitoring: Mail flow for priority accounts can now be assigned a threshold for failed or delayed emails, receive alerts when that threshold is exceeded, and view a report of email issues for priority accounts.
Azure Bastion and VNet peering can now be used together
Azure Bastion no longer needs to be deployed in each peered VNet when VNet peering is configured. The Azure Bastion host can now be used to connect to VMs deployed in a peered VNet without deploying an additional Bastion host so long as it is configured in one virtual network (VNet). Added information regarding this offering can be reviewed here: VNet peering and Azure Bastion (Preview)
Azure Policy as Code via GitHub
Azure Policy as code enables the ability to manage the lifecycle of definitions and assignments in a repeatable and controlled manner. New integrations between GitHub and Azure Policy allow the ability to better manage policy definitions and assignments as code. The integration begins with the ability to export policy definitions and assignments from the Azure Portal to GitHub repositories. The export definition button, available in the definitions view, allow the ability to select your GitHub repository, branch, directory then enable the ability to select the policy definitions and assignments to export to GitHub. More information can be viewed here: Using GitHub for Azure Policy as Code
New constrained vCPUs capable VMs now available
Microsoft now offers the Esv4, Edsv4, and Easv4 memory optimized Azure VMs as new constrained vCPU VM sizes. Organizations can now take advantage of next generation Azure Virtual Machines for workloads requiring high memory, storage, and I/O bandwidth, but not a high vCPU count. Further details as to the entire list offered can be found here: Constrained vCPU capable VM sizes
Community Events
Festive Tech Calendar – New content from different communities and people around the globe for the month of December
All Around Azure: Beginner Guide to AI – First event in a series specifically focused on AI technologies such as Azure Cognitive Services, Azure Cognitive Search, Conversational AI and Azure Machine Learning Designer
Introduction to Cloud Adoption Framework – Sarah Lean investigates Microsoft’s Cloud Adoption Framework offering and what is available for organizations to take advantage of
MS Learn Module of the Week
AZ-104: Configure and manage virtual networks for Azure administrators
Preparing for your AZ-10: Microsoft Azure Administrator Exam? This learning path share details on configuration and management of Azure network capabilities like connectivity services, application protection, application delivery, and network monitoring services. This learning path can be completed here: AZ-104: Configure and manage virtual networks for Azure administrators
Our team always appreciates your input on the Microsoft services news we share. Let us know in the comments below if there are any news items you would like to see covered in next week show. Az Update streams live every Friday so be sure to catch the next episode and join us in the live chat.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Listening to the challenges many of our customers are facing with increasingly working online, we’ve developed new capabilities in Dynamics 365 to discover email messages, meetings, and phone call activities related to an opportunity, and then to factor these signals into the score.
Capturing activities to determine opportunity health
A healthy opportunity will usually have activities happening in it like email messages, meetings, and phone calls. Many of our predictive opportunity scoring customers were gathering these signals manually to determine opportunity health. We’ve replaced the need for customers to manually track activities by using AI to gather activities, approving prediction accuracy and compensating for cases where sellers do not diligently update the opportunity fields.
There is additional value in activities they provide actionable explanations for opportunity scoring predictions. It can help the seller make more educated choices about what the best next action might be for example, a high level of activity may indicate that the opportunity is heating up and is worth attention. Likewise, an opportunity with where the activity level is low may need immediate attention.
Here’s an example showing the opportunity score improving:
Here’s an example showing the opportunity score declining:
Connecting opportunities with activities
In addition to activities that are explicitly connected to opportunities, we developed algorithms to infer indirect connections between activities and opportunities, using Contact and Account activity timelines. Since these are not trivial connections (for example, an account may have multiple opportunities), AI is assigning them appropriate predictive weights.
How the predictive opportunity scoring model is trained
First, we make sure, automatically, that the data we have is meaningful and contributing to the prediction. Then we look at each recent activity level of every opportunity and try and find a correlation between this signal and the likelihood of winning the opportunity.
After the model is trained, we can view the open opportunities in the system and give them a score based on past examples. What the AI does is learn how recent activity level affects the likelihood to win an opportunity in your organization.
What Clover Imaging Group has to say about predictive opportunity scoring
“The predictive opportunity scoring model in Dynamics 365 Sales offered sales leaders at Clover Imaging Group valuable machine learning into what has traditionally been a manual process. With the predictive opportunity scoring model implemented, sellers were able to more effectively prioritize their opportunities based on metrics that are unique to our industry and organization. Beyond that, the predictive opportunity scoring model also gave detailed explanations as to why an opportunity was scored as it was, and what needs to be done to achieve a higher success probability. Plus, the Microsoft support and development team took the time to understand the nuances of our business, which allowed the model to pick up and evaluate the metrics most important to us.”
Next steps and continued learning
We encourage you to explore predictive opportunity scoring in Dynamics 365 Sales to see how it can help your sales team to prioritize work more effectively.
To understand the full capabilities of Dynamics 365 Sales and the value they bring to Dynamics 365 customers, visit Dynamics 365 Sales. To get started with activity suggestion, visit Overview of Dynamics 365 Sales. you’re using contact capture and have feedback, questions, or new needs, contact us at D365AISales@microsoft.com.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
New apps and features in Microsoft 365 for individuals and families this fall
By Gareth Oystryk, Director of Product Marketing, Microsoft 365
Since we introduced Microsoft 365 to individuals and families earlier this year, we have continued to deliver new innovations across our apps and services to help you and your family save time and stay connected. See what’s new below.
Locate your loved ones and build better driving habits with Microsoft Family Safety
Stay connected even when you’re apart with the Microsoft Family Safety app. Share your location with loved ones, spot them on a map, and save places they visit the most, all with a free Microsoft account. With a Microsoft 365 Family subscription, you also get alerted when your family members arrive or depart from a specific location.1 Plus, get insights on how your family is doing on the road, including how many times the driver uses their phone, their top speed, and even the number of times they brake hard. Location alerts are available to Microsoft 365 Family subscribers on Android and iOS worldwide, except for Japan, China, and countries where right-to-left languages are used. Drive safety reports and driver history are available to Microsoft 365 Family subscribers in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia on Android and iOS.
Get a more holistic view of your spending in Money in Excel
Money in Excel now pulls up to two years of transaction history to get a better picture of your spending habits, a big increase from the three months of transaction history it launched with. Plus, Money in Excel now supports multiple credentials per financial institution so you and your partner can get a unified view of your accounts. Available now to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers in the US in Excel for Windows, macOS, and web.
Get started quickly with new templates for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint
Over the last couple of months, we’ve published over 30 premium templates for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint that help you get started faster and look your best. Check out the Family Budget Planner template, the Mood Board template for your next creative project, and the Emergency Contacts template, a must-have for every home. Available now to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint for web, Windows, and macOS.4
Stay in your flow with Your Phone app and Link to Windows on Galaxy phones
In August, Microsoft and Samsung announced new experiences that will help you stay productive wherever you are. Today, we’re rolling out a new multi-app5 experience in Your Phone app, so you can run multiple Android mobile apps side by side on your Windows 10 PC. Apps will launch in separate windows enabling you to interact with multiple apps at the same time even if Your Phone app is not open. Pin your apps to Favorites, Windows 10 taskbar, or Start menu for quick and easy access. And moreover, you can now search for your previously pinned apps via Windows search from within your Start app list.
Whether you are staying connected with family and friends, keeping up on your social feed, or ordering food, you can do it all simultaneously from the comfort of your PC, with no need to install apps or sign-in again. The Your Phone multi-apps experience is now rolling out to supported Samsung devices. Learn more here.
Sync Samsung Notes and Reminders on Galaxy phones with Outlook, OneNote, and To Do
Also rolling out, Samsung Notes can automatically sync with your OneNote feed in Outlook on the web. And Samsung Reminders can automatically sync to Microsoft To Do, Outlook, and Microsoft Teams. Now you can take notes or set reminders while on the go with your Samsung Galaxy phone, and then access them on your Windows 10 PC when you return home. Samsung Note sync to OneNote feed in Outlook on the web is available now for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers and to anyone with a Microsoft account by the end of this year. Learn more about this experience on Samsung.com.
Easily share your photos and files with OneDrive family and group sharing
OneDrive has always made it easy to share docs, photos, videos, albums, and folders. But until now, sharing to a group of people meant typing in the names of all the people you wanted to share with. Last month, we simplified the process with one-click sharing to family and groups. Once you predefine your family or friend group, you’ll be able to share a photo, album, or important document to your group with one click. Family and group sharing is available in OneDrive for web to anyone with a free Microsoft account.
Formal or casual? Specify your writing goals in Microsoft Editor
Now you can choose the level of formality you would like Microsoft Editor to consider when providing relevant critiques for your writing. You can choose between “formal,” “professional”, or “casual” styles to help ensure your writing hits the right tone. This experience is rolling out now to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers in Word for web. Writing goals is currently only available for English language users; however, it will support additional languages in Word for web in the coming weeks.6 For languages outside of English, you can choose between two goals: “formal” or “casual.”
Focus on your conversation instead of your notes with Transcribe in Word for web
Whether you’re interviewing a family member to chronicle your family’s history, running a virtual parent-teacher association meeting, or “attending” a college lecture via any major video conferencing platform, you want to focus on the conversation without worrying about taking notes. Now you can record your conversations directly in Word for the web and transcribe them automatically. Transcribe detects different speakers so after you finish recording, you can easily follow the flow of the transcript. Available now to Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers in Word for web. Currently only available for English language users using Microsoft Edge or Chrome web browsers.
Survey or quiz your friends and family with Microsoft Forms
In October, we made Microsoft Forms available for personal use. With easy-to-use tools and clear design suggestions, you can gather input and make plans for a variety of activities—survey your neighborhood friends for a weekly running time, coordinate your virtual holiday gathering with family, or even host a virtual trivia night with friends from any location. Available now for web and within the Office mobile app for anyone with a Microsoft account. Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers can poll an expanded number of respondents and get access to more templates.
1Requires location alerts to be enabled and active. 2This feature is currently available in preview only in the US and Canada and is currently available only in chats with three or more participants. Standard SMS data charges apply. 3To help ensure the privacy of our users, this feature will only work if you are already sharing your location with the person setting up a location alert for you. Additionally, anytime someone sets up a location alert on you, Teams will notify you. To disable this feature, you can simply stop sharing your location. 4Premium templates are available in the following languages: Chinese (simplified), Dutch, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Russian, and Spanish. 5Users must link their Galaxy device to their Windows PC through ‘Link to Windows’ on phone and Your Phone app on PC, follow the set-up prompts, including being signed into same Microsoft account. Link to Windows is preloaded on select Galaxy devices. Your Phone requires latest Windows 10 Update on the PC. For Apps experience, Galaxy device must be on and connected to the same Wi-Fi network as the PC. Some mobile apps may restrict content to be shared on other screens or may require a touch screen to be able to interact with them. Ability to run multiple apps simultaneously is rolling out to select Samsung Galaxy devices running Android 11 and requires Windows 10 May 2020 Update or later. 6Writing goals in Microsoft Editor will support the following languages in the coming months: Chinese (simplified), Chinese (traditional), French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese (Brazilian), Portuguese (European), Russian, and Spanish.
Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.
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