Tag: Microsoft 365

Viva Connections and Other Changes to Microsoft 365

Microsoft has announced several changes to the Microsoft 365 cloud.  These new features will be of interest to both end users and companies alike.  If you’ve opted in to see preview features, some of these items may be visible now.

Microsoft Viva Connections

At this point, many people are familiar with Microsoft’s existing product, Viva Insights.  Microsoft is releasing a new module to the Viva family called Viva Connections. Viva Connections helps users stay connected with the latest and greatest communications. The goal is to empower users to take a more active role in their data and collaboration and allow users to interact with content more than ever before by commenting and reacting.

The main interface to Viva Connections is the dashboard, which is customizable.  The interface becomes a gateway to a more modern employee experience.  Viva Connections allows users to save a SharePoint article for later consumption and provides a platform for the company to push announcement videos to users.  Viva Connections is currently in public preview and can be viewed from within Microsoft Teams.  Here are some examples of the new interface (courtesy of Microsoft):

For more information, take a look at Microsoft’s page for the Viva Connections Public Preview.

Other Features Coming to Microsoft 365

While Viva Connections is the hot topic making the headlines, there are several other new features coming to the Microsoft 365 cloud. 

One Player Video Playback in OneDrive/SharePoint

Changes to the video controls in SharePoint and OneDrive for Business will allow you to pop-out video for a more immersive experience.  The new pop-out video provides new options to change playback speed from 0.5x up to 2x, and skip forward and back by 10 seconds. This new functionality makes reviewing videos, such as recorded meetings, easier and more efficient.

For example, Whiteboards will no longer be stored in SharePoint, but rather in the OneDrive of the creator. Also, Yammer now allows for nested replies, which improves conversation experience and keeps things in context.

Teams – Reply to Message

Microsoft Teams now allows users to respond to a specific message within a thread or conversation.  Previously, you could reply to a whole conversation, but this was confusing when someone replied to a message further in the past.  When replying to a specific message, a copy of the original message is quoted for reference. 

Changes to SharePoint Online

The text web part in SharePoint is getting a minor update.  Now you can paste images into a text web part.  This automatically creates a gap around the pasted image so that text wraps as desired. There are also options to align to the left, right, and center.  Also, formatting is updated so that spacing between headers and body, and between bullet points, is reduced slightly.

SharePoint Navigation in team sites can be switched between vertical and horizontal.  You can now choose the design (left or top navigation) that works best for your team.

Share a list with a hyperlink.  Now, the same rules that apply to sharing files/folders now also apply to sharing a list.

Microsoft Lists applied filters are being updated.  You can now see which filters are applied.  With a single click, you can view and adjust your filters, making this process a little more seamless.

Changes to Microsoft Planner

Microsoft is updating Recommended Plans in the Planner service.  Now you can discover plans that are relevant to your work. This makes it easier to find tasks that are assigned to you but you haven’t noticed yet. Recommended Plans can be found in the left pane between Favorites and Recent.

There are also new options for managing Planner tasks. Previously, you could only move tasks between plans within the same team. Now users can move tasks to any Planner plan across Teams.  To use this, click on the ellipse menu in the upper right corner of a task, and select Move task.

While most of these are not gigantic leaps forward, this shows a constant evolution that makes the Microsoft cloud better for everyone. 

Permanent link to this article: https://www.robertborges.us/2021/10/cloud-computing/viva-connections-and-other-changes-to-microsoft-365/

Accessibility Features Coming to Microsoft 365 in Fall 2021

Microsoft has announced improvements to the accessibility functionality of Microsoft Teams and Outlook to help improve the inclusiveness of the workplace.  Several of these features are aimed at improving the experience for “deaf and hard of hearing people and increase flexibility and focus for everyone.” Though, these features are useful for a far greater user base. 

Microsoft has made these improvements throughout the Microsoft 365 cloud, including Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, and Viva. Here are some of the more notable changes Microsoft is releasing. For more details, see Microsoft’s post Creating inclusive hybrid work experiences – what’s new in Microsoft 365 accessibility features for Fall 2021

Support Employees’ mental health and wellness with Viva Insights

Microsoft states that “mental health conditions are the number one disability in the world today.” Viva can help users “achieve balance, collaborate intelligently, find greater focus, and be their best from wherever they work.” Viva Insights uses AI to improve work/life balance. The Protect Time experience helps block time on your calendar, so you have the time necessary to respond to messages and time to focus on work. There are improved Meditation options to increase calm. The new Virtual Commute experience helps you mentally close out the day by offloading tomorrow’s tasks. 

Multiple improvements announced for accessibility in Outlook

Improvements to Outlook for Windows’ Editor tool will offer the user “refinements to improve clarity, conciseness, inclusiveness, and more.” Microsoft’s goal is to “give you more confidence as a writer and communicator.”

Dictation now supports more voice commands and automatic punctuation. With these improvements to dictation, you can add recipients, add text to the subject line of an email, and verbally give the command to send an email. By turning on auto-punctuation, you no longer need to verbally say how you would like to punctuate your sentences and can speak much more naturally. This is available in the Outlook app for Windows and Mac (as well as the Microsoft Word application).

“Accessibility Checker MailTip” will automatically prompt you when you’re including inaccessible content. These reminders make Outlook more accessible than ever before.

Teams improved with Live Captions, Live Transcription, CART support, and improvements to views

Captioning is not new to Microsoft Teams, but here are some interesting improvements. Once enabled by an administrator, users can turn on Live Captions that only they can see during the meeting. Captions are generated automatically using Microsoft’s AI technology and have been expanded by increasing the number of supported languages to 28 and including support for speaker attribution. This functionality is now available in both Teams meetings and Teams Live Events.

Live Transcription can convert the spoken word to written text and can be available both during and after the meeting has ended. Once the feature is enabled by an administrator, this transcription happens in near real-time and can start automatically when the meeting recording begins. It can also be enabled without recording the meeting.

Live Captions and Live Transcription can be very useful tools but do have some limitations when there is a lot of technical terminology or when speakers have multiple accents.  To address these limitations, Microsoft is announcing CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) Captioning support for Teams. This is where a person is translating spoken word to text. This can be particularly useful in circumstances where translation/dictation software usually fails. To use this feature the user will receive a special link along with the meeting invite from the meeting organizer, which will connect them to their preferred CART captioner. The CART captioner will enter text in real time.

In the past, it has been challenging to view both a presentation and sign language interpreter on the screen simultaneously. Teams was limited to viewing one or the other. This is now changing in Microsoft Teams. Now you can spotlight or pin multiple videos at the same time. This can allow a user to view a sign language interpreter and a presentation screen on a video call. Pinning changes the view for the user only. Spotlighting is done by a presenter (or organizer) and allows them to highlight up to 7 different feeds which are displayed to all attendees.

Permanent link to this article: https://www.robertborges.us/2021/10/cloud-computing/accessibility-features-coming-to-microsoft-365-in-fall-2021/