Stay in the loop Featured

Stay in the loop: January 2021 roadmap updates

Stay informed quickly and easily with this monthly post bringing together the 303 features planned for release in January, the 84 features added in December as well as the ones that caught my attention!

Jacques Alexandre Bergeron

Jan 7, 2021 • 16 min read

Each month there are tons of features added and planned for release and it is hard to keep track of features even with the new Microsoft 365 roadmap website, RSS feed and downloadable spreadsheet.

This one-stop-shop monthly article makes sense of the clutter and is divided into 3 sections:

7 features that caught my attention
303 features planned for release this January
84 features has been added to the roadmap in December 2020

Do not forget that the most accurate and updated information regarding the upcoming features are found at the Microsoft Roadmap web site.

I hope this will help you easily discover what is coming and maybe help us manage employee and client expectations.

Do you like the picture?
This one was taken during my trip to Cusco / Peru.

7 features that caught my attention

Here some of the feature planned for release this month that caught my attention.

Teams: Add a shared calendar to a Teams channel

Finally! You will see and create events for a specific Teams/channel while adding this new app as a "Tab." The app will only show events associated with the current channel meaning that you will need to schedule your meeting from Teams and choose the appropriate channel association to make it appear there. Want to see it in Outlook to combine view with another calendar? Yes, it's possible, but using a PowerShell command on each team, you wish to the calendar accessible in Outlook. @Steve Goodman as releases a great article here with more detail! Roadmap ID: 68911

Teams: Meeting attendee registration

Need to provide a registration page for an event? This feature will exactly bring that possibility to any Team meeting. It will let you create a registration page for any Teams meeting, and following the registered user will receive an email confirmation and the calendar invite. The registration form will help you manage the attendance before and after any engagement. We still don't know much about this one, but some say it may need an Advance Communication add-on on top of your current M365 subscription for users who need to manage large events. Roadmap ID: 66586

Teams: Live reactions

Attending meeting and want to "thumps up" what presenter just said or send heart because you love the latest quarter benefit presented? Your dream has now come true with this feature rolling-out soon this month. Users will have an option to send live reactions such as heart, thumps up, smiley and clapping to allow all attendees and presenters know how we feel or our tough during a presentation. Learn more by looking at this video from @Giuliano De Luca. Roadmap ID: 65946

MIP: Data loss prevention for Microsoft Teams

DLP is one of the many topics businesses give more attention to than ever in this new digital age. Business needs to prevent people from sharing sensitive information in Teams as they may do in Outlook & SharePoint. With this feature, users won't be able to share sensitive in chat and conversation when a DLP policy matches. The DLP will prevent, for example, an HR department user from sharing a bank account number or social number in a conversation with another user in chat or channel conversation. Get the full detail here. You may also have a look at this great article by James Cussen / @myteamslab. Roadmap ID: 65383

Lists: Mobile app (iOS)

This month Microsoft will release the iOS mobile app (Android shortly come later) to let you access all the list you own, and that has been shared with you whenever you are! It's now time to replace your old legacy Excel spreadsheet, whenever possible, with a Microsoft List. Have you not ear about Microsoft Lists before? Have a look at this fantastic service here that will help you cover multiple scenarios that will need has from now developer knowledge. Roadmap ID: 64161

Lists: Offline mode

No, I'm no kidding! Microsoft will soon let us bring our Microsoft List Offline using their new underlying technology - "Project Nucleus.» This new feature will allow you access and work on your list data without the need for an internet connection. Offline mode will also bring significant improvement while sorting, grouping and scrolling large since all the content will be store on a local cache. Have a look at this Microsoft video bellow by @Mark Kashman. We do not have much information if this will also be available on a mobile device, but sure from a pc perspective. Roadmap ID: 68809

Records Management - Regulatory Records

One of the many reasons businesses are moving to Microsoft 365 services is to manage their documents governance requirements. Through several features already available and now with this new addition, companies will now have more rigorous control over their record management. With a regulatory record, companies will be able, among other things, to ensure that users cannot modify the metadata, renamed the document or change/remove level and this even if it's an admin. Find out more here from one of the many @Joanne Klein posts or this quick comparison table. Roadmap ID: 68712.

303 features planned for release this January

Here a list of what’s Microsoft has planned for release this month. Remember that “Planned for release” does not mean you will get the update this month but instead that Microsoft planned to start rolling out and it takes weeks and months prior it gets globally available.

To keep this simple this include all Products, Release Phase, Platform and Cloud Instance. The text has been cut in order to fit on 1 line, then if you are curious about it, click on it to go directly to the roadmap.

84 features added to the roadmap in December

Here a list of what’s Microsoft has been added to the roadmap in the past month.