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February 2024 Newsletter

We're back with our monthly roundup!

Like any good partner, we’re listening! Since Microsoft Teams announcements are coming in quickly, we’ve separated the list into subcategories below. Let us know what you’d like to see improved! 

Click Here To Tell Us What You'd Like To See In The Newsletter

What’s New with Email?

  • If you send 5,000 or more messages per day in either Yahoo or Gmail: Starting February 2024, your email domain must have a DMARC policy in your DNS.  You can find guidance for using DMARC to validate email here.  

What’s New in the Hybrid Data Center?

Citrix

  • Citrix (and others) have had recent security vulnerabilities disclosed. If you’re not already addressing CVE-2023-6548, please contact us immediately. Also, please patch your Ivanti and Sonicwall systems. 

VMWare

  • eGroup Enabling Technologies’ status in the VMWare partner program has been seamlessly transitioned to Broadcom’s Advantage Partner Program. We are at your service to start discussing your renewals well in advance. We don’t want their pricing changes to be a surprise to your budget. 
  • We’re waiting on Broadcom’s definitive disposition of Horizon, WorkspaceOne, and CarbonBlack. 
  • Looking to understand which VMware products made the cut? VMware recently announced the End Of Availability of Perpetual Licensing and SaaS Services.  
  • Trying to understand the new Core and Tib Requirements for vSphere licensing? VMware also created a knowledge base article to help here. 

Nutanix

Cisco Networking

  • Cisco Catalyst 9300 Management is now integrated with the Meraki Dashboard (more than view-only). With more recent Catalyst 9300 switches, you can now migrate the Cat9300’s from standalone to Meraki-managed mode. Check out Cisco Catalyst 9300 Management with Meraki Dashboard. 

Pure Storage

Microsoft Azure

  • Microsoft announced availability for Azure Virtual Desktop for Azure Stack HCI, bringing AVD on-prem to improve workload performance of stringent local app delivery. AVD for Azure Stack HCI is now available. 
  • LinkedIn decided to NOT fully move to Microsoft Azure but instead stay with a hybrid approach:  LinkedIn shelved plan to migrate to Microsoft Azure cloud. eGroup Enabling Technologies agrees with LinkedIn being Cloud-Smart rather than Cloud-First based on workloads and business decisions. 

What’s New with Microsoft?

Managed Desktop

  • Managed Desktop is transitioning to End-of-Life on July 31, 2024. Microsoft is NOT planning on setting a default date to move customers to Windows 11 23H2. However, customers can request to move to Windows 11 23H2 at any time. 

Teams

  • Automatic Update Coming in March
    • Classic Microsoft Teams users that have not updated to the New Microsoft Teams will be updated automatically after March 31, 2024 (note, New Teams for VDI is now generally available). If you missed our webinar on the transition, check out New Teams Experience: Prepare For Success. 
  • Retiring Ability to Load Websites within Teams
    • Starting April 2024, Microsoft Teams will be retiring the ability to load websites inside the new Teams client when using the Website tab. These website links will open in a new browser tab instead. This is to better align with emerging best practices in web security and privacy. Please note that Education tenants will not be impacted as Microsoft is still researching options on how to best handle this. If the pinned websites are SharePoint sites, pin the SharePoint app to a tab instead of pinning the URL with the website tab. 
  • Privacy Sandboxing with Chrome
    • Since Google is gradually rolling out privacy sandboxing in the web with general availability in late 2024, some Teams experiences in Chrome will be impacted.  If your organization accesses Teams in the Chrome browser, some of your users may start being affected by this change. Microsoft’s recommendation is to use the Teams desktop client.
  • Now Available on Safari and Firefox Browsers
    • The latest Teams Meeting experiences are now available on the web in Safari and Firefox browsers for anonymous join only.
  • New! Collaborative Notes
    • Microsoft Teams is rolling out enhanced Collaborative Notes that allow any meeting invitee to create notes before, during, and after the meeting, improving collaboration and efficiency. There’s also a new shareable link type that is created by the Collaborative Notes file to limit the link to “Specific people.”
  • Changes to File Open Experience
    • Changes are being made to the file open experience in Teams for security enhancements and optimizations.
  • Coming soon! Ability to Remove Items from Activity Feed
    • Teams users will soon be able to delete and remove items from the activity feed. The Remove functionality can be found under the ellipsis menu in the activity feed. 
  • Search Within Chats and Channel
    • Microsoft is introducing a new and improved experience to search within chats and channels. Users will be able to narrow down their search results by picking a specific domain like files, group chat or Teams, or a person’s name. 
  • Mesh is now available in Teams
    • Mesh is now available in Teams to transform meetings into a 3D immersive experience. 
  • Forwarding Chat Message
    • You can forward chat messages to other users by simply selecting “forward” after right-clicking a message. 
  • Decorate Your Background with AI
    • You can decorate your background using AI to customize your real-world room. 
  • Mute/Unmute Audio
    • You can mute and unmute audio on Teams (on Windows) by clicking the mic icon in the Windows taskbar or pressing Windows logo key + Alt + K while in a call. 
  • Hide “General” Channels
    • Similar to other channels in a team, now you will be able to hide “general” channels, in the event the channel is not used and you want to remove it from your channels list. 
  • Tags Available in Private and Shared Channels
    • Tags will now be supported in private and shared channels in Microsoft Teams. Users can now use tags to @ mention groups of people in private channels.   

Teams Meetings

  • New! Duplicate Existing Webinars
    • Microsoft Teams is introducing the ability to duplicate an existing webinar, simplifying event creation. 
  • Content camera support
    • Content camera support is now available on the new Teams app experience for Windows and MacOS.  
  • Configure Meeting Options Before Event Creation
    • In Microsoft Teams, users can now configure meeting options within the Teams app before event creation, including posting and reordering questions on the registration form for webinars in Microsoft Teams.  
  • New Invitation Look
    • By mid-March, invitations will start to look different. The link for joining the meeting will be larger. The “Need Help” link will be at the top of the meeting invite. If users need additional info for joining the meeting (e.g., meeting info or passcode)—they will also find it and it won’t be confused with other IDs (e.g., phone conference ID or video ID). There are some options relevant to meeting organizers only, but useless for participants—which are moved to a separate “For Organizers” section. 
  • External Presenters Receive Exclusive Join Links
    • Organizers can set up events and effortlessly add external presenters, who will receive exclusive Teams join links. These links enable external presenters to directly enter the event, eliminating the need for organizers to manually admit them from the event lobby or modify their event role during the session. 
  • QR Code for Teams Panel Room Meetings
    • Teams Panels will support reserving a room for meetings using a QR code.  
  • Customize Notifications for Meeting Chats
    • Users will soon be able to control how they get notified in meeting chats through their RSVP to their meetings. When they decline a meeting, they will not receive notifications or see the chats in chat list; when they accept a meeting, they will receive a notification for all new messages.  
  • Tenant Admin Controls for Internal Users
    • Tenant admins can control whether some users in their organizations can join any externally hosted Microsoft Teams meetings. 
  • Teams Administration  
    • A new report providing basic analytics for external access is being rolled out in the Teams Admin Center.  
  • Header Search
    • Header Search now supports a wide range of entities, including Teams, Users, Policies, Settings, Documentation, (now) Emergency Addresses, and more. 

Teams Phone

  • End users can now change their external call routing settings directly from the Teams app, allowing them to decide how incoming PSTN calls are routed. Calls can be redirected based on existing unanswered call settings or sent to voicemail, providing more flexibility for handling customer communications. 
  • Certain legacy Teams phones built on Android are not able to receive the necessary Android firmware coming in August. If you use AudioCodes C448HD, AudioCodes C450HD, Yealink VP59, Yealink MP52, or AudioCodes RXV80, these devices will continue using Device Administrator and will be supported until August 30, 2024. AudioCodes is offering discounts for upgrades to buyers migrating to other phones that run Android 12 (C470, C455, C435). 
  • Shared calling is yet another massive money saver for traditional phone systems or even UCaaS providers. People who rarely make calls can share a calling plan (even a Pay as You Go plan)! 
  • Voicemails that are protected can now be played in the Teams Mobile app. 
  • Teams device admins can configure maintenance windows for Android-based Teams devices. This includes Teams Phones, Displays, Panels, and Teams Rooms on Android. This maintenance window will be the time to carry out any automatic operation on the device, including automatic updates.

Teams Premium

  • Priority Account Chat Controls empower users with controls for unwanted internal communications (i.e., to be notified about chats from new contacts, giving them a choice to accept or block conversations).  
  • Teams meeting participants can now share content when Watermark is enabled via PowerPoint Live, Whiteboard, and Excel Live.  
  • Organizers who have Teams Premium can now select the 10 translated caption languages (from a list of over 40) that an attendee can choose from in a town hall. 

SharePoint

  • The legacy SharePoint Invitation Manager is being retired and will be replaced by the Entra B2B Invitation Manager.  

OneDrive

  • Soon users can easily find Microsoft Lists, Loops, Power BI dashboards, and Whiteboard content within OneDrive Web (in the Recent, Shared with You, and Favorites lists).

Copilot for Microsoft 365

  • The Microsoft Copilot Dashboard Power BI app will be retired on February 26, 2024, and users are recommended to access the same report in the Viva Insights App. Viva Insights licensed organizations will have access to additional insights combining usage metrics with collaboration and sentiment data in the Copilot Dashboard.

  • Draft with Copilot, which generates full-length emails from user-supplied prompts, will start rolling out for users in Targeted Release. 

  • Intelligent Recap will now be available for Copilot users after meetings to get a summary of the meeting, including personalized timeline markers to easily browse the recordings by when you joined or left, when a screen was shared, or when your name was mentioned.  

  • ServiceNow Tickets Graph Connector is now generally available. 

Microsoft 365

  • Microsoft 365 Backup Service is now live for public preview. 
  • Users of Microsoft 365 apps can now use Double Key Encryption for files and emails. 

Edge

  • The Microsoft Edge management service is rolling out a preview of controls for enterprise-secure AI.

Outlook

  • Virtual appointment, Webinar, and Town Hall are Teams meeting templates that are accessible via the ‘New meeting’ dropdown menu in Teams Calendar app. These meeting templates are also now in the meeting templates menu in the Outlook Windows client in the Teams Meeting Add-In. 
  • In the new Microsoft Outlook for Windows, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, attachments will open directly in their respective desktop apps.  
  • Stream video recordings can now be recorded and inserted in Outlook on the web and the new Outlook for Windows. 

Outlook Mobile

  • With the new sync window, users can choose how many days of emails and attachments they want to download to their iOS or Android device so they can always access them—even while offline. 
  • Currently, iOS users can’t edit PDF files on the previewer in Outlook mobile. Microsoft is adding a new “Open Microsoft 365” button to open/edit PDF files received on Outlook via the M365 for mobile app. 

Stream

  • Microsoft will retire Stream (Classic) on April 15, 2024, and all videos on Stream (Classic) will be deleted after the retirement date. Admins must migrate their tenant’s Stream (Classic) data to Stream (on SharePoint) before the retirement date to prevent data loss. 
  • Make video interactive and more engaging by adding annotations that can include hyperlinks and text. Call out important moments or share documents and other links to additional resources. Add text and links anywhere in the video timeline to help guide your viewers to the right information.  

Security

  • Microsoft shared its lessons from its own breach by Russian backed APT-29, highlighting the need for multi-factor authentication (MFA), minimizing privileges (even in test tenants), and bogus OAuth apps being a trigger to start alerting on (since APT-29 changed IPs too quickly for traditional Indicators Of Compromise to sense). 

Purview

  • Purview can scan third-party Gen-AI platforms, so if people are prompting Bard or ChatGPT with internal info, an alert can go off. Check out Microsoft’s Securing Data in an AI First World. A few organizations that we’ve talked with have decided to loosely ban (not really block) use of these tools, but most have not. This capability will give better insight. 
  • Microsoft Purview Message Encryption will replace and retire the legacy Office 365 Message Encryption (OME) in the Exchange admin center. If you don’t do anything, Microsoft will migrate all mail flow rules. With this change, recipients will receive a much more customizable notification mail.
  • New fields are being added in Microsoft Exchange to help prevent data loss and provide more details about attachments that violate DLP rules.
  • Purview Records Management integrates with Power Automate to provide greater process flexibility.
  • Microsoft Purview Compliance portal is introducing new controls for private team discoverability and shared channels in Teams.
  • Simulation mode in DLP provides admins with an isolated experience to try a DLP policy, assess its impact, and build confidence in the policy efficacy to eventually reduce the time to policy enforcement. Simulation mode is an enhancement to the existing test mode behavior. 
  • A new cmdlet, Export-ContentExplorerData, is available for exporting data from Content Explorer.
  • Purview Communications Compliance is introducing Insightful Policy Performance to public preview, with real-time visibility into scanning progress and updates on parent items that meet policy conditions.

Intune

  • IT admins can now review and act on Intune policy conflicts that impact the Windows Autopatch service.
  • Beginning in April 2024, Intune audit logs will only be retained for up to one year to align with the documented retention period.
  • Microsoft released an updated Company Portal for macOS (v.5.2401.0) that is a required app update. Starting now, the minimum supported version of the macOS Company Portal changed to v.5.2401.0.

Entra ID and Microsoft 365 Secure Score

  • Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) has been renamed to Microsoft Entra ID to communicate its multicloud and multiplatform functionality and alleviate confusion with Windows Server AD. The name will be updated within Microsoft Secure Score.
  • Microsoft Secure Score now has New Microsoft Defender for Identity recommendations.

Defender for Cloud Apps

  • Changes are being made to the IP lists that need to be added to the allowed list (whitelist) in your organization for Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps. 

Defender for Microsoft 365

  • There will be a new experience for end users to manage allow and block lists of their emails. With one click, end users will block emails from unwanted senders and prevent those emails from showing up in their default quarantine view as well as in their Quarantine notifications. End users will also be able to allow emails from trusted senders and prevent future emails from those senders from landing in quarantine (given there are no Admin overrides in place). End users will also have visibility into Admin overrides that led to a Quarantined email message if there is one.
  • Microsoft Defender XDR for Office 365 is improving its submission options for admins to convey their opinions on verdicts. 

What’s New in Cupertino?

  • Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Microsoft Teams are available on Apple visionOS, supporting both Enterprise and Consumer accounts.

Conclusion

If any of these updates or changes concern you, please don’t hesitate to reach out to our team! We will be happy to work with you and navigate the changes with you. Feel free to fill out the form below to get in contact with our team.

Need Assistance with these Updates?

Contact our team today to get help with any of the changes mentioned above!

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