Earlier in the week, Microsoft unveiled its 2023 Work Trend Index report that highlighted how AI is redefining how companies work alongside the new Microsoft 365 Copilot early access program. It’s an invitation-only, paid preview program that’s set to roll out to only 600 clients across the globe at first.
And as we come to the end of the week, as usual, it’s time to recap all the key features Microsoft announced as coming to its Microsoft 365 suite. Here’s everything you need to know:
Outlook on the web – Work Hours and Location
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, a lot of organizations transitioned to hybrid work, and with people working asynchronously across different times, it may be difficult to pass communication appropriately. It is important to strike a balance between work and personal time, you’d not like to be thinking about work while hanging out with friends and family.
Microsoft has now announced a new feature to Outlook on the web that will allow users to set up their work hours and location (WHL). The feature tagged 88822 in the Microsoft 365 Roadmap will let users specify when they’ll be working remotely or in the office.
What’s more, users can set up different working hours per day, or multiple work slots in a day. Additionally, if you use Teams too and have the feature enabled on Outlook, the location status will also be displayed on your Teams profile card.
According to Microsoft:
The new WHL also impacts how “suggested times” work when creating a meeting event in Outlook on the web. Suggested times will take into account the WHL of the attendees before suggesting times when people are available.
The feature is expected to start rolling out to users later this month and hit general availability by early June.
Microsoft Teams: New ‘Sync device buttons’ setting
Microsoft has introduced new Sync device buttons toggle under the Teams Desktop client Settings (Devices tab). The setting is designed to help users disable syncing between their device controls and with Teams.
The feature is already available in preview and is currently in the roll out phase. It’s expected to hit broad availability by mid-May. “The purpose of this feature is to offer an option for end users to disable the syncing of their connected Peripherals with the Teams Desktop client to allow for co-existence scenarios with other HID-enabled or speech-recognition apps,” says Microsoft.
Microsoft Edge management service
For those unfamiliar with the Microsoft Edge management service, it’s essentially a single portal for admins designed to help them manage the Edge browser. And now, Microsoft has announced that admins will have the capability to configure all Edge browser policies for their organization in a configuration profile and set-up the browser to use these settings.
The feature tagged 124856 in the Microsoft 365 Roadmap is expected to start rolling out mid-July and hit general availability by mid-August.
That’s it for this week folks! In related news, Microsoft added a new feature to the Microsoft 365 mobile app for both iOS and Android users that lets them sign PDFs. The feature is currently rolling out to Microsoft 365 Insiders, it’s not yet clear when it will hit broad availability.
Be sure to check out last week’s recap post in case you missed it. Let us know which feature you’re anticipating most in the comments.
Featured image via Bing Image Creator
