M365 Roundup, January 2021: Teams Lobby Lockdown, Connector Webhook Security, and a Skype Connector Sunset

January 2021's Microsoft 365 message center was dominated by Teams refinements, but two items deserve an MSP's attention beyond the meeting room: the more secure connector webhook format, and the retirement timeline for the Skype for Business Online Connector. Intune also set hard OS support cutoffs worth flagging to clients before they bite. Here is the month, grouped by product. The original PDF version is here (opens in new tab).

Microsoft Teams#

History menu. Hovering over the backward and forward navigation buttons shows recently visited locations in Teams, making it easier to return to nested tabs and documents. You may want to update training and documentation. Timing: Rollout begins early February, complete late February 2021.

Touch Bar meeting controls for Mac. Teams meeting controls for MacBooks with Touch Bars let users mute/unmute, turn the camera on/off, open/close the sharing tray, open/close the participants panel, open/close the chat panel, and raise/retract a hand. Timing: Early January, complete by end of January.

New lobby setting, only invited users join directly. Organizers can ensure that only Calendar-invited users bypass the lobby by setting Who can bypass the lobby to People I invite. Anyone else with the invitation is sent to the lobby. Timing: Rollout starts early February, complete by mid-February.

Connector webhook URL security improvement. Connector support in Teams is transitioning to a new webhook URL format that includes the tenant name, helping organizations filter egress traffic. Old URLs continue to work for now, but users will be prompted to re-create connectors. Timing: Monday, January 11, 2021; existing webhook URLs continue to work for three months to allow migration.

Location picker support for security groups and distribution lists. This applies only if you have DLP licensing such as M365 Business Premium. The update gives more granular control of DLP policy scope in the Microsoft 365 compliance center, including the ability to include or exclude particular departments, business units, or geo-specific security groups. The policy applies to the existing membership of security groups or distribution groups and updates automatically as membership changes. Timing: Mid-February, complete by early March 2021.

Revised in-meeting share experience. On the Teams desktop client for Windows and Mac, users will see a new design when sharing their screen, window, Whiteboard, or PowerPoint during meetings. Timing: Mid-February through mid-March 2021.

Include computer sound in a meeting (Mac). Mac users can share audio from their speakers with other participants, such as when sharing a video with sound. This is available to all Mac users unless you have set the ScreenSharingMode policy to None (opens in new tab). It requires a one-time audio driver installation, prompted when a user selects Include computer sound from the Share content tray. Timing: Begins late January, complete early February 2021.

Queue sent messages when offline. Currently, sending or editing a Teams message while offline is labeled a failure, and on reconnect Teams prompts to retry or delete. In phase one, messages sent while offline are queued on the local device and sent automatically once connectivity resolves within 24 hours; after 24 hours unsent they fail and prompt the user to resend or delete. Phase two applies the same to editing queued messages. Timing: Begins late January, complete early February 2021.

Skype for Business Online Connector retirement. The connector will no longer be available for download after February 15, 2021. The Teams PowerShell module is where Microsoft will continue to invest, delivering all new features, fixes, and improvements. Administrators can keep using the Skype for Business Online Connector until July 31, 2021, but after February 15 will not be able to download the module.

Microsoft Intune#

macOS support cutoff. Microsoft 365 apps version 16.44 and higher require macOS 10.14 and higher. Microsoft 365 ended support for macOS 10.13.x in November 2020, so you may not be affected if you already manage 10.14 or higher. Devices still on 10.13.x can update M365 apps up to version 16.43 via Microsoft Auto Update, but those apps are no longer supported on 10.13.x and will not receive security updates or bug fixes. Upgrade those devices to macOS 10.14 or higher.

Android support moving to 6.x and higher in April. Office mobile apps for Android ended support for Android 5.x (Lollipop) on June 30, 2019, so this may not affect you. Any device still running Android 5.x, or any 5.x device you try to enroll, will need to be upgraded to Android 6.x (Marshmallow) or greater, or replaced with a device that supports 6.0 or greater.

Microsoft Outlook#

Message reminders in Outlook on the web. After Outlook assesses that a user may have forgotten to respond to or follow up on an email, it brings that message to the top of the inbox, a maximum of one at a time. Users can disable this under Settings > Layout > Message reminders. The feature rolls out on by default. To disable it org-wide via PowerShell, use the MessageRemindersEnabled parameter under Set-OrganizationConfig: $true enables, $false disables. Timing: Targeted Release (organization) mid-February through mid-March 2021; Standard Release early March through late July 2021.