August is near its end, and there has been a few key new features and updates within Microsoft. In this blog post, we will highlight some of the updates that you should know about, including Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Intune and Entra. Whether you are a business user, an IT professional, or a developer, there is something for you in the August Microsoft updates.
Microsoft Teams
Rename Teams General Channel
It’s now possible to rename the default General Channel in Teams!
Every Teams channel you create has a default channel named “General” (which is not overly useful.). Team owners can now click More Options on the general channel and rename it.
This feature should be available to everyone by the end of August.
Custom Emojis and Reactions
Microsoft now allows you to add custom emojis or reactions. While it’s not a revolutionary change in collaboration, it gives your organisation the option to personalise some of reactions used in your Teams.
As always IT admins can control access to this feature or turn it off completely
📌 Emojis can only be used within the user’s tenant but once they are sent, they will appear to all members of the chat
Quick guide below
Click emojis and then your organisations emojis.
Click Custom
Select an image from your device
This will now appear in the custom section when you want to use it.
In this example, our favourite Olympic silver medalist can be used as a reaction to any message.
Enhanced sound notification control
We now have improved control over sound notifications, allowing for greater customisation of when and why sounds are played.
Turn on/off notifications for channel posts
When a post is made to a Teams channel you can now control if you receive notifications from that individual post, not just the overall channel.
Just right-click on the posts and turn notifications on or off.
Teams cross-cloud guest access on Web Client
Some organisations use Teams to chat and collaborate with people outside of your organisation using guest access. Once enabled you can collaborate with the guest within your Teams, this feature has only been possible using the Team desktop app but is now available through the web client as well.
Microsoft Outlook
Add accounts to Outlook Mobile using QR code
This feature allows users to scan a QR code from their Outlook Web session to sign in on Outlook mobile without the need to enter their username and password.
This is currently in preview and is expected to be fully available by mid-November.
Intune
Users can install MacOS apps on demand via Intune
Intune admins can now assign unmanaged applications as “Available” rather than just required. This means users can install the application when/if needed from the Intune Company portal.
Microsoft is continuing to add more options around macOS device management. Hopefully, we’ll see continued support going forward.
Windows 365 security baseline
Microsoft Intune has security baseline policy templates which quickly allow you to establish Microsoft Security-recommended settings. These can be useful if your organisation doesn’t have an existing policy set and wishes to achieve a security standard.
One of the baselines is for Windows 365 (Microsoft’s Cloud PC) which they have now updated the baseline with:
- Faster deployment of baseline version updates
- Improved user interface and reporting experience
- More consistent naming across the Intune portal
- Ability to use assignment filters
Microsoft Entra
Microsoft Entra Suite
Microsoft Entra Suite is now generally available. This is a bundle of Microsoft Entra identity services like conditional access, RBAC, SSPR, risk-based conditional access (and much more!). The big highlight of Microsoft Entra Suite is that it also comes with Microsoft Entra Internet Access and Microsoft Entra Private Access two newer services that bring powerful security benefits.
This is something to consider if you are looking to remove outdated legacy VPNs from your organisation and want to leverage tools like conditional access. Private access will allow you to provide secure access to your private applications and resources while also using conditional access and single sign-on.
More info on pricing and additional features below.
Microsoft Entra Plans and Pricing | Microsoft Security
And Finally
If you want to know any more about anything Microsoft or Azure then please feel free to reach out to us by giving us a call of dropping us an email.
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