M365 Roundup, August 2022: Teams Rooms Pro Reshuffles Licensing While the GDAP Clock Runs

August 2022 splits cleanly into two piles: feature news you can read at leisure, and two admin items that touch the partner business directly. The GDAP timeline now has hard dates attached, and Teams Rooms licensing gets rebuilt on September 1. Business first, features after.

The partner business: GDAP dates and a Teams Rooms rebuild#

GDAP timeline updates (action required)#

Three dates to put on the calendar:

• The tool for creating GDAP relationships with Azure Active Directory (AD) roles in bulk is available until October 31, 2022: GDAP bulk migration tool, Partner Center (opens in new tab)
• September 30, 2022: Microsoft stops creating DAPs when a new customer or reseller relationship is created. If your customer onboarding workflow includes creating DAP relationships, that step needs to change.
• October 31, 2022: Microsoft begins transitioning active DAP connections to least-privileged GDAP roles.

Partner Center announcement: August 2022 announcements (opens in new tab)

Teams Rooms Pro replaces Standard and Premium on September 1, 2022 (licensing update)#

On September 1, 2022, Microsoft starts offering Microsoft Teams Rooms Pro, replacing the previous Standard and Premium offers. Key details:

• Pro is priced at $40 USD per month
• Two offerings exist: Pro and Basic
• Basic is free with the purchase of a Microsoft Teams device, and is geared toward SMB
• The Basic license is only available direct as part of the hardware setup flow; it is not part of volume licensing and is not sold through the CSP channel
• Existing Standard and Premium licensing can run until the next anniversary date

The concern for resellers: Standard through CSP is priced at $15 USD per month as of August 2022 and carries no reseller margin, and Pro nearly triples the sticker. The open question is how you obtain the free Basic licensing for a Microsoft device you already own, versus buying net new and picking up the license through hardware setup. Hopefully that path stays low-friction. Full details in the Partner Center announcement (opens in new tab).

Teams: six features, from transcripts to bulk deployment#

Auto-transcription joins auto-recording (new feature)#

When a meeting organizer sets the Record automatically option to On, transcription now turns on together with recording when the meeting begins, provided admins allow transcription.

Rollout: late August, completing by mid-September.

Adobe Acrobat as the default PDF viewer (new feature)#

Admins can set Adobe Acrobat as the default app for viewing and editing PDFs in Teams. Once set, all PDF files from chat, channels, and the Files app open directly in the Acrobat app inside Teams. End users do not need an Adobe Acrobat subscription or Adobe ID to view, search, comment, and annotate PDFs; creating, organizing, combining, or exporting a PDF does require an Acrobat subscription.

Two admin steps to set it up:

1. Set up the Acrobat app to work in the tenant:
   • Log in to the Teams admin center.
   • In the left panel, go to Teams app > Manage apps.
   • Search for the Acrobat app, then click it to open the app details page.
   • All apps are allowed by default, so no action is usually needed. If a preexisting admin setting, app permission policy, or org-wide app setting has blocked the app, make sure it is allowed.
   • On the Permissions tab, select Review permission requested by the app, then click Accept to grant consent.
2. Make the Acrobat app available on users' Teams clients:
   • Log in to the Teams admin center.
   • In the left panel, go to Teams app > Setup policies.
   • Select Global (Org-wide default), then Edit.
   • Under Installed apps, select Add apps.
   • Search for the Acrobat app, add it, and save the policy.
   • To allow Acrobat only for specific people or groups, assign a custom app permission policy instead.

Rollout: available now in public preview, with GA in early September 2022.

Q&A toggle in Meeting Options (new feature)#

Meeting organizers and co-organizers can enable Q&A for a meeting through Meeting Options by toggling Enable Q&A to yes. With Q&A on, attendees click the Q&A icon in the meeting to ask questions and engage in structured discussion.

Rollout: mid-July, completing by late July.

Pick where Teams downloads land (new feature)#

All Teams file downloads currently go to the Downloads folder. A new setting under Files lets users change the default download location, plus a toggle that, when enabled, prompts for a location on every download.

Rollout: early September, completing by late October.

Leave a meeting on every device at once (new feature)#

Joining a call from multiple personal devices has made fully disconnecting a chore. Multi-device users now get a prompt option to leave the meeting or call from all devices in one action.

Rollout: early August, completing by early September.

Deploy and manage teams at scale (new feature)#

Microsoft is building out tooling for admins to deploy and manage large numbers of teams at once. The capabilities available and planned:

• Create up to 500 teams using pre-built or custom templates via the Teams PowerShell cmdlet
• Add up to 25 users to teams as owners or members
• Manage teams at scale by adding or removing users from existing teams
• Stay notified through email on completion, status, and errors, with up to five people notified per batch; team owners and members are notified automatically when added

More detail: Deploy teams at scale for frontline workers (opens in new tab)

Rollout: preview in late August, completing by mid-September.

Viva: quiet time crosses into Teams and Outlook#

Viva Insights is adding configurable quiet time that silences notifications from the Outlook and Teams mobile apps outside working hours, in the name of boundaries and protected personal time. Users get personalized insights through the Viva Insights app in Teams and can set quiet time directly from Teams mobile and Outlook mobile.

Rollout: late September, completing by late October.