December updates incoming! The Office Roadmap has once again been updated and this time with quite a few new additions to the roadmap. Note that there is very anticipated and important updates to Office 365 Groups - have a read and enjoy!!

Changes 2015-12-14

Now Launched

  • Capacity Management capabilities in Project Online: Colored heatmaps and stuff in Project Online (from Rolling out)
  • Compliance Search Conditions: Improved search experience in the compliance center (from Rolling out)
  • Data Loss Protection (DLP) for Office desktop: Data loss prevention features in the Office client (Excel, PowerPoint and Word). Cool! (from Rolling out)
  • DKIM Outbound for Exchange Online Protection: outbound validation of e-mails (from Rolling out)
  • FastTrack | Data migration to OneDrive from Google Drive: Fast track center now offers migration from Google Drive to OneDrive (from In Development)
  • FastTrack | Skype for Business Onboarding Expansion: onboarding guidance for PSTN Conferencing and Calling Plans, Cloud PBX etc (from In Development)
  • FastTrack | Azure Rights Management Onboarding: RMS Onboarding, isn’t this just checking a check box? (from In Development)
  • FastTrack | Project Online Onboarding: Get them projects in the cloud (from Rolling out)
  • New per-user licensing for Sway: license Sway per user! Which essentially means, we can now shut down Sway on a per user basis. (from In Development)
  • Office 2013 Windows client modern authentication public preview: ADAL based sign in for ye old Office client (2013) is now in PUBLIC PREVIEW.  (From Rolling out)
  • Office 365 Groups: auditing: Office 365 audit reports now includes changes in Office 365 Groups. This is huge in making Office 365 ready for enterprises. Go Groups! (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: Support compliance requirements: Another awesome Groups update. You can now put holds on Groups - which will put a hold on mailboxes, files, calendars etc in the Group! (From In Development)
  • OneNote Online: Record Audio clips & Insert File: OneNote Online is a bit more pimped with Audio clips (NEW)
  • Project Online content pack for PowerBI: Project Online data in PowerBI - a match made in the clouds (from In Development)
  • Resource Engagement Workflow in Project Online: improvements for Resource Managers in Project Online (from Rolling Out)
  • Sway admin controls over Insert tab content sources: Important enterprise focused update of Sway that allows admins to control from where the Sway users can insert data (from In Development)
  • Sway in Service Health Dashboard: Sway traffic lights in the admin portal (from In Development)

Rolling out

  • Multiple timeline bars in Project Online: a new and pimped and more efficient timeline bar in Project Online (from In Development)
  • Office 365 Groups: creation policy in Azure Active Directory: A new policy option in Azure AD that allows admins to restrict group creation to certain users. Previously this could only be controlled through the Exchange policy settings - but that policy only affected creation through Exchange, Outlook and the Outlook Groups app. This new policy applies to all endpoints (read Microsoft Graph, PoSh etc). (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: dynamic membership: AWESOME! We will be able to create Office 365 Groups and base them on dynamic memberships, for instance have all users with the value “Project Manager” in their title in one group etc. (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: naming policies for aliases: the naming policies only applied to the display name of the group previously, now it will also apply to the e-mail alias. (NEW)
  • Office 365 Multi-Channel Catalog Support:: Improvement to the Education, Government (Public), and Charity sections allowing them to purchase any commercial service (NEW)

In Development

  • FastTrack | Office 365 ProPlus Upgrade Assistance: Onboarding center will help ProPlus customers to upgrade to the 2016 version. **giggles** (NEW)
  • Office 365 Admin app - Group functionality: Group Administration is coming to the Admin App (from In Development, previously this one was called Office 365 Admin app updates October 2015)
  • Office 365 Admin app - Push Notifications for Message Center: opt-in or out to push notifications (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: data classification & extensible policy: This one is HUGE folks. And it just explains how important Office 365 Groups is for Microsoft and Office 365. This update states that we will be able to classify Groups (secret, confidential, unclassified etc) AND we will have the option to specify an endpoint that is called whenever a Group is created! BOOM! Take that Yammer! (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: deletion recovery: get them Groups back from the dead with a single click (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: expire inactive groups: Awesomeness just keep coming! (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: files quota management: Get better control of the amount of data your groups use (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: general usage reporting: Usage and Engagement reports in the Admin Center (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: hidden membership support: Currently the membership is open, this update will allow you to have hidden memberships, very good for privacy reasons (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: mobile application management: The Outlook Groups app will be a managed app in Intune (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: multi-domain support: This one has been high on my whish list. Have control of the e-mail domain used by the Groups (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: naming policy in Azure Active Directory: the description on this one is a copy of the dynamic membership one, see above, but I do think it is about having the naming policies not only in Exchange but also in AAD. (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: Office Delve discovery & insight: Groups in Delve! Can’t beat that! (NEW)
  • Office 365 Groups: usage guidelines: Better options for you to have guidelines about the usage of Groups within your organization. I’m thinking like the TOU in Yammer. So one more feature from Yammer is moving into Groups (NEW)
  • Outlook on the web: Addition of “Distribution Groups” Option and Removal of “Other” link: Just a re-org of the menus in OWA. (NEW)
  • Per user licensing for Yammer: I see this as we can now turn of Yammer and only let the handful of people that still likes it use it… (NEW)
  • Project Online - Portfolio Dashboard: More reports based on best practices and industry standards (NEW)
  • Project Online - Portfolio Dashboard for iPad: Same as above but for the illiterate. (NEW)
  • Skype for Business Mac Client Preview: Them Appleheads will love this, we gotta give them a chance to participate in our meetings sometime :). (NEW)