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Microsoft 365 packed full of new features
Wed, 22nd Jul 2020
FYI, this story is more than a year old

Microsoft Inspire has kicked off with a number of major announcements across Microsoft's Azure, Microsoft 365, business applications, security, enablement, and sustainability initiatives. In this story we focus on the company's Microsoft 365 announcements.

Microsoft Lists

Microsoft 365 will soon include Microsoft Lists, a planning and information app. It will enable users to track issues, assets, routines, contacts, inventory and more using customisable views, rules and comments. Integrations will be available with Power Platform, Teams, and SharePoint. Lists will be part of 365 in late July, coming to teams in August, and an iOS app expected later this year.

Universal Print SaaS

Microsoft 365 is introducing Universal Print, a software-as-a-service (SaaS) solution to its reseller partners.

Microsoft states that printer manufacturers are working on native support for Universal Print, and independent software vendors are developing print and output management solutions with Universal Print integration.

Yammer

Yammer includes new features including featured conversations, UserVoice requests and drives communities and open sharing across Yammer, Microsoft Teams, Outlook, SharePoint and Microsoft 365, and support for external guests in communities. Microsoft 365 Global Admins can configure access to the new Yammer through the Yammer admin portal.

Teams Rooms Premium

Microsoft Teams Rooms Premium is now available through in-house or through a Microsoft partner in the Teams Admin Center.

Teams Rooms Premium gives customers the option to shift the operational burden of their rooms to Microsoft or a certified Microsoft partner.

This solution is suited for customers who would like to modernize and expand their Microsoft Teams Rooms without scaling or ramping their internal resources to manage demand.

Development integration solutions for Teams

Teams partners and developers can leverage updates to integrate apps with Teams meetings. Additionally, new side panel and real-time notification capabilities are included. Users will be able to add apps to the meeting controls bar, providing easy access for meeting participants.

Power Platform comes with new functionality

Power Platform experience will soon add functionality including Power Apps and Power Virtual Agent can now access data that resides in Microsoft Dataflex, a relational database now built into Teams at no additional cost. This added functionality will allow more users and organizations to explore creating and using conversational chatbots powered by Power Virtual Agents in Teams.

Power BI personal app for Teams

A Power BI personal app for Microsoft Teams enables a data visualisation hub and access to Power BI reports. This will be available in the Apps section of Teams in August.

Teams for RealWear HMT-1

Microsoft Teams app for RealWear HMT-1 provides integration for RealWear head-mounted devices. This gives workers to conduct calls, chats, and remote assist capabilities through voice commands.

Teams Walkie Talkie

Microsoft Teams Walkie Talkie is in public preview. The push-to-talk software turns Android devices into Walkie Talkies. So far, Jabra/BlueParrott and Klein Electronics join Samsung in developing devices that will provide native integration with Teams Walkie Talkie.

Teams Shifts

Teams updates for IT administrators include firstline worker and manager policy packages, now generally available, will streamline policy assignment with pre-defined settings tailored for their entire firstline workforce. Shifts audit logs are now generally available. Furthermore, a new feature in the Shifts module will enable team scheduling with alerts for potential scheduling conflicts.