Some nice, collaborative, cheeky treats landed this past month – most of which are designed to help you work better together; some might round out your gaming time…

July 2024 brought some great new offerings—New SharePoint content pane, co-authoring in SharePoint, OneDrive: Additional file types to filter, OneDrive: Updated shared folder experience, new Copilot in Planner (preview), the 2024 release wave 2 plans for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform, details about how to enter the Deadpool Xbox giveaway sweepstakes, and more. Details and screenshots below, including our audible companion: The Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop: July 2024 podcast episode – all to help answer, “What’s rolling out now for SharePoint and related technologies into Microsoft 365?”

In the podcast episode, I chat with Melissa Torres (Twitter | LinkedIn), Principal PM manager at Microsoft on the SharePoint team. Melissa and I talk about recent pages and news updates (News > Outlook, section designs, image shapes, video pages, new content pane) and then dive into learning more behind the scenes of co-authoring in SharePoint pages.

Melissa Torres, Principal PM Manager (SharePoint pages / Microsoft) – our Intrazone guest (right) speaking with Mark Kashman (left) via Teams.

All features listed below began rolling out to Targeted Release customers in Microsoft 365 as of July 2024 (possibly early August 2024).

Inform and engage with dynamic employee experiences

Build your intelligent intranet on SharePoint in Microsoft 365 and get the benefits of investing in business outcomes – reducing IT and development costs, increasing business speed and agility, and up-leveling the dynamic, personalized, and welcoming nature of your intranet.

SharePoint: New content pane for pages and news

This is a convenient hub that supports various author actions when crafting publications. And note: It also applies to working with pages in Viva Amplify; something I just utilized this morning to broadly share the Loop learning series news internally far and wide. This content pane includes tools such as the distribution channel selection, writing guidance, and audience selection.

The new SharePoint content pane in use during edit mode – showing Web part, Stock images, and Section templates.

You’ll see it when editing SharePoint Pages and News. You’ll know you’re there when you see categories for web parts, media, and section templates. Not only is it more organized, but as you create and design, you’re clicking and dragging web parts and media onto the page while editing. It makes editing more seamless and consistent. Use the new content pane for less editing pain in your future.

The new SharePoint content pane in use in Viva Amplify during edit mode – showing Web part, Stock images, and Section templates.

Roadmap ID 124827 and  ID 398977.
Learn more + blog.

SharePoint: Collaborate on SharePoint pages and news with co-authoring

You now have the ability for multiple authors to edit the same Page at the same time, without having to take turns. Authors can see real-time changes made by others as they happen in pages, sections and web parts.

When co-authoring on a SharePoint page, you’ll see where your colleagues are working – on the page, within web parts, within sections.

After an author starts editing a page, they can see if other authors are also editing with the page presence in the command bar. Multiple authors can simultaneously edit the same page and section, but coauthors cannot edit the same web part at the same time. Changes made by authors are saved automatically every few seconds. If authors want to exit ‘edit mode,’ they can select Save and close.

In the below video, Melissa demos much of what you can do when co-authoring in SharePoint pages and news:

Three FAQs for SharePoint page co-authoring:

If an author attempts to publish or post a page while others are actively editing, the author will see a warning message that others are editing. If desired, the author can proceed with publishing and posting. The same behavior applies for scheduling and submitting for approvals.
To undo changes, authors can continue to use Undo as they do today to undo the most recent changes by the current author in the current browser session. To undo more changes or changes made by other users, authors can restore a prior version from Version History (under Page details).
The command for Save as draft has been removed as it is no longer needed to check in the draft for another user to edit.

Roadmap ID 124853.
BLOG + DEMO VIDEO | “Introducing Coauthoring for SharePoint Pages and News” by Melissa Torres

Watch | “Content Management and Collaboration for the AI Era“
Watch | “The intranet of tomorrow: beautiful, flexible, and AI ready“

Teamwork updates across SharePoint team sites, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams

Microsoft 365 is designed to be a universal toolkit for teamwork – to give you the right tools for the right task, along with common services to help you seamlessly work across applications. SharePoint is the intelligent content service that powers teamwork – to better collaborate on proposals, projects, and campaigns throughout your organization – with integration across Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Yammer, Stream, Planner and much more.

OneDrive: Additional file types to filter your lists of files

When you know more about what you’re looking for, you’ll find it faster. That’s search 101 in Microsoft 365. To help, OneDrive brings new file type filters, like OneNote, Lists, Loop, and more.

You will see a new dropdown menu to filter content when using OneDrive.

You will see a new dropdown menu to filter content in the OneDrive Home, Shared, People, Meetings, and Favorites views. You’ll be able to select from the following file types, you see filters for:

OneNote
Microsoft Lists
Videos
Loop
Photos
Whiteboard
Power BI

And as you apply a filter, the speed of UI refresh is like butter these days. Find it faster by refining your findings with new file type filters… in OneDrive.

MCID: MC814578

OneDrive: is updating the shared folder experience

Currently, when a user opens a shared folder in OneDrive, they are taken to a view of that folder within the sharer’s OneDrive. In the new experience, opening a shared folder will take the user to the shared folder within the People view of their own OneDrive. This view, organized by people, shows and allows access to all the files and folders that have been shared with the user.

A before (left) and after (right) look at the Shared folder experience in OneDrive for the Web.

It’s a cleaner way of representing the who of the what – with a more consistent visual context.

Roadmap ID 395378.

Related technology

Try out the new Copilot in Planner (Preview) in the new Microsoft Planner in Teams

We are excited to share that the Copilot in Planner (Preview) is now rolled out to 100% of users with a Project Plan 3 or Project Plan 5 license* in Microsoft Planner in Teams. With the power of generative AI, Copilot in Planner streamlines the planning, management, and execution of your work, keeping you informed. With Copilot in Planner, teams can generate and add tasks, goals, and buckets based on user prompts, and even create a full plan including these elements.

Copilot in the new Planner can help with planning, managing, and tracking projects.

Recent preview updates include:

The ability to return to previous chats and improved reliability in answering questions about progress, due dates, and assignments.
Enhancements in adding subtasks and linking tasks to buckets and goals.
New suggested prompts to highlight question and answer capabilities.

There is a lot to learn and try, and the Planner team is all ears and responsive, taking the feedback and making the product better in the ways you let them know about.

Learn more.

2024 release wave 2 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform

Published the 2024 release wave 2 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform. These plans are a compilation of the new capabilities planned to be released between October 2024 to March 2025. This release introduces a wealth of new features designed to enhance customer understanding and improve overall user experience. 

I’ll share three highlights and encourage you to hit the links in the show notes and blog to review it all:

Highlight #1 | Microsoft Copilot for Sales continues to deliver and enhance cutting-edge generative AI capabilities. Updates will focus on using AI-powered insights to create leads, deepen the integration into Copilot in Microsoft 365, and use natural language capabilities to allow sellers to ask data-related questions of their CRM. View this video to learn more about the features releasing in this wave. 
Highlight #2 | Microsoft Power Apps will expand Copilot capabilities to work with data, get insights, and improve their apps. Makers will continue to benefit from AI-assisted development, enabling rich and complex applications to be built with monitoring, control, and unmatched governance for admins, ensuring organizations can adopt low-code and AI transformation at scale.
Highlight #3 | Microsoft Power Pages will expedite site building for a low-code maker or pro developer to build intelligent sites that adapt to how you interact with your employees, customers, and partners.
Plus, visit the early access FAQ page for more information

And since we’re talking about the Power Platform, here’s a did you know: Did you know the Power Platform community has a new site? Indeed, they do: just head on over to https://community.powerplatform.com/

It’s a great community to be a part of something bigger. Connect with peers and experts, get answers to your questions, and learn best practices – all in one place.

Deadpool Xbox “Cheeky Controller” sweepstakes from the Xbox team

I wanted to let you in on a fun sweepstakes the Xbox team is running. I can’t not share this unique Merc-with-a-Mouth merch from the Xbox team. That’s right – it’s your chance to win a custom Xbox Series X console & 2 Cheeky Controllers designed by Deadpool.‌ #XboxCheekyControllerSweepstakes

Deadpool Designs the Cheekiest Xbox Controller.

Note: This one’s for Ages 18+ with no purchase necessary. The Sweepstakes started at 6:00 a.m. Pacific Time (PT) on Wednesday, July 17, 2024, and ends at 8:00 p.m. PT on Sunday, August 11th, 2024.

Follow @Xbox on Twitter and repost one of the designated promotional posts containing the hashtag #xboxcheekycontrollersweepstakes during the Entry Period. Full Rules: http://xbx.lv/4cxoA4B

As Deadpool has said, “Life is an endless series of train wrecks with only brief commercial-Like breaks of happiness.” Check out this #CheekyController as a nice commercial-break-of-happiness to your day today.

More details + full rules.
Start with this tweet or this video on Twitter + a fun image on Instagram
Watch: Unboxing on Xbox Pod + full epi

Learn more about Microsoft Loop 

We have five upcoming Loop’y events for you – numerous opportunities to see Loop in action, to learn about their upcoming roadmap items – like Copilot in Loop innovation, lots of opportunities to ask questions, get some time-saving tips and tricks, and provide direct feedback to the Loop product team.

Check it out now, go to: https://aka.ms/LoopLearningSeries 

Microsoft Loop | 5-Part Learning Series.

Here are the short details about each of the five Loop webinars:

Part 1 | “Meet the makers: The story behind Loop” with Ron Pessner, Michelle Holtmann, and Karuana Gatimu | Wednesday, August 14th, 2024, from 10:00am – 11:00am PDT.
Part 2 | “Almost everything you need to know to start with Microsoft Loop” with Rebecca Keys and Tamine Mokdissi | Wednesday, August 21st, 2024, from 10:00am – 10:30am PDT.
Part 3 | “Level up your project management with Loop” with Esha Mathur and Jessica Mariscal Quintana | Wednesday, August 28th, 2024, from 10:00am – 10:30am PDT.
Part 4 | “Meet Copilot in Loop” with Jenna Hong and Oby Omu |  Wednesday, September 4th, 2024, from 10:00am – 10:30am PDT.
Part 5 | “AMA: Live Video Q&A with the Loop team” with Derek Liddell, Dan Costenaro, and Manon Knoertzer | Wednesday, September 11th, 2024, from 10:00am – 11:30am PDT.

I wanted to make sure you were Loop’ed in on this 5-Part Microsoft Loop Learning Series.

Register today: https://aka.ms/LoopLearningSeries and see you there!

July 2024 teasers

Psst, still here? Still scrolling the page looking for more roadmap goodness? If so, here is a few teasers of what’s to come to production next month…

Teaser #1: SharePoint: A new Start experience [Roadmap ID: 124824] 
Teaser #2: New Banner web part for pages and news [Roadmap ID: 386904]

… shhh, tell everyone.

Helpful, ongoing change management resources

“Stay on top of Office 365 changes“
“Message center in Office 365“

Install the Office 365 admin app; view Message Center posts and stay current with push notifications.

Microsoft 365 public roadmap + pre-filtered URL for SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer and Stream roadmap items.

SharePoint Facebook | Twitter | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback

Upcoming events

TechCon365 – DC | August 12-16, 2024 | Washington, D.C.
CollabDays Hamburg | August 31, 2024 – Hamburg, Germany
Microsoft Power Platform Conference | Sept. 18-20, 2024 | Las Vegas, NV
CollabDays – New England | Oct. 18, 2024 | Burlington, MA
TechCon365 – Dallas | Nov. 11-15, 2024 | Dallas, TX
Microsoft Ignite (+ more info) | Nov 18-22, 2024, “Save the date” | Chicago, IL
European SharePoint Conference [ESPC]| Dec 2-5, 2024 | Stockholm, Sweden
+ always review and share the CommunityDays.org website

Follow me to catch news and interesting SharePoint things: @mkashman; warning, occasional bad puns may fly in a tweet or two here and there.

Thanks for tuning in and/or reading this episode/blog of the Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop – July 2024. We are open to your feedback in comments below to hear how both the Roadmap Pitstop podcast episodes and blogs can be improved over time. Engage with us. Ask those questions that haunt you. Push us where you want and need to get the best information and insights. We are here to put both our and your best change management foot forward.

Stay safe out there on the road’map ahead. And thanks for listening and reading.

Thanks for your time,

Mark Kashman – Senior product manager | SharePoint / Lists | Microsoft

The Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop – July 2024 graphic showing some of the highlighted release features.

​Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More