M365 Roundup, September 2024: Copilot Wave 2 and an Admin MFA Deadline

September 2024 carries two headlines for MSPs: Copilot Wave 2, which ships Pages, Python in Excel, and SharePoint-built agents, and a hard date of October 15, 2024 for mandatory MFA on Microsoft's admin portals. Around those, Teams collected seven updates, Intune four, and SharePoint quietly launched the add-on license that starts the Copilot data-governance conversation. Everything that matters, grouped by product.

A quick note on our own news first. September 2024 marked the soft launch of CloudCapsule, our automated tool for assessing Microsoft 365 tenants against the CIS Controls. We built it to streamline tenant assessments to a trusted standard, raise the tide of security across the space, and help MSPs understand the why behind every policy configuration.

Beyond automated evidence collection for the CIS Controls, it detects tenant misconfigurations against security best practices, and the first assessment against a tenant is free. (Note: it does not work against M365 dev tenants.)

Microsoft Entra ID: the admin MFA deadline#

The one with a date attached: starting on or after October 15, 2024, Microsoft will require admins to use multi-factor authentication when signing into the Microsoft Azure portal, Microsoft Entra admin center, and Microsoft Intune admin center. Full announcement: MFA enforcement for Microsoft Entra admin center sign-in coming soon (opens in new tab). Audit every admin identity you operate, including the ones scripts sign in with, before that date.

Microsoft Copilot: Wave 2 lands#

Copilot Pages makes AI output durable#

Pages takes ephemeral AI-generated content and makes it durable: editable, expandable, shareable. Teams can work collaboratively in a page with Copilot, see everyone's work in real time, and iterate with Copilot like a partner while pulling in more content from data, files, and the web. Rollout: later September 2024.

Copilot agents built right in SharePoint#

Creating a Copilot agent in SharePoint gives users a simple starting point for AI tooling scoped to their own needs. The pitch: make Copilot your own, collaborate with others against the same relevant knowledge base, spend less time consuming information, and create these agents right where you already work in SharePoint. Rollout: early October 2024.

Copilot in Excel with Python#

Copilot in Excel with Python enables advanced analysis that was previously out of reach: describe the analysis in natural language and Copilot generates, explains, and inserts Python code into the spreadsheet. It also renders visuals that were previously difficult or impossible in Excel, including heatmaps, pairplots, multiplots, and violin plots. Read more here (opens in new tab).

More information:

• What's New in Excel, September 2024 (opens in new tab)
• Microsoft 365 Copilot Wave 2: Pages, Python in Excel, and agents (opens in new tab)

Status: public preview.

Prioritize My Inbox in Copilot for Outlook#

With Prioritize my inbox, Copilot in Outlook (opens in new tab) surfaces the messages that matter by analyzing both email content and the context of the user's role, such as who they report to and the threads where they have been responsive. Rollout: late 2024.

Narrative Builder in PowerPoint goes GA#

Nobody goes from idea to polished deck in a single prompt, and Narrative builder leans into that: Copilot uses the prompt to build an outline with topics the user can edit and refine into a first draft, keeping the human in control of the creative process. Soon, users will be able to ground outline topics with files, and with Brand manager, Copilot can apply the company's branded template so presentations stay enterprise-ready and on brand. Status: GA.

15% off Copilot for CSP partners#

On September 1, 2024, Microsoft launched the Getting Started with Copilot for Microsoft 365 promotion: CSP partners get 15% off the net partner price for all new customer subscriptions between 10 and 300 Copilot licenses. Promotional period: September 1, 2024 through December 31, 2024. Details: September 2024 Partner Center announcements (opens in new tab).

Web search query transparency#

Two transparency features arrive for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot. Web search query citations, generally available in October 2024, show the exact web search queries derived from a user's prompt in the linked citation section of the response, alongside the sites searched (available today). Web search query logging, generally available in Q4 2024, lets admins run search, audit, and eDiscovery against those derived queries, extending the tools they already use on prompts and responses. More information: Introducing web search query transparency for Microsoft 365 Copilot and Microsoft Copilot (opens in new tab).

Rollout: October 2024.

Copilot on Windows moves into the Microsoft 365 app#

Going forward, users with work or school accounts access Microsoft Copilot through the Microsoft 365 app. Organizations that never enabled Copilot in Windows (in preview) keep their existing preferences, and neither the Microsoft Copilot app nor the Microsoft 365 app gets pinned to the taskbar automatically. Organizations that had activated Copilot in Windows for their workforce will not see the Microsoft 365 app auto-pinned either; Microsoft says admins keep control over how the Copilot experience is enabled. Rollout: managed PCs starting with the optional nonsecurity preview release on September 24, 2024, then the monthly security update on October 8, 2024 for all supported versions of Windows 11.

Microsoft SharePoint: governance for the GenAI era#

SharePoint Advanced Management, an add-on license, is a suite of features built to simplify data governance and hygiene in Microsoft 365, improving both security posture and the Copilot experience. September's announcement adds features for keeping sensitive data secure and prepping for generative AI by identifying overshared content, enabling AI-focused access controls, and easing removal of irrelevant content:

• Permission state report
• AI-driven semantic matching of sites
• Site ownership policy
• Restricted Content Discovery
• Restricted Site Creation
• Inactive SharePoint sites policy
• Data Access Governance report on content shared with "Everyone except external users" in the last 28 days

The SKU is GA at $3 per user per month, with feature availability varying. Full post: Governing data for GenAI with SharePoint Advanced Management (opens in new tab).

Microsoft Teams: seven updates, one security change that bites#

Meeting passcodes grow from 6 to 8 characters#

Citing recent global security threats against online meetings, Microsoft is increasing the minimum meeting passcode length from 6 to 8 characters, still letters and numbers. Users clicking meeting links or joining from their calendars notice nothing; only participants joining with a Meeting ID and passcode, inside or outside the organization, will type the longer code. Rollout: early November 2024, completing by mid-November 2024.

Admins can block specific external users#

Admins can now maintain a list of users blocked from collaborating with the organization. Blocked users cannot participate in 1:1 or group chats with your org, and if chats predate the block, the blocked user is removed from them. The feature is off by default. Rollout: early November 2024 (previously late October), completing by mid-November 2024 (previously early November).

A refreshed view of all teams and channels#

Before the rollout, managing a team meant hovering its name, opening the three-dot menu, and going to Manage team, with the Your teams page linking into each team's General channel.

After the rollout, team owners and members view their teams and access each team's channels from the Your teams page, reached via Your teams and channels under the three dots at the top right of the left panel.

Rollout: mid-October 2024, completing by late October 2024.

Location joins the presence signal#

Users can add a location to their presence signal to indicate when they are in the office or in a particular building, using Microsoft Places building lookup.

Rollout: early November 2024, completing by mid-November 2024.

Volume control for language interpretation#

Meeting participants using language interpretation can control the volume ratio between the original meeting audio and the interpretation audio after selecting a language. When an organizer enables interpretation, participants choose a language on join or later under More menu > Language and speech > Language interpretation.

Rollout: mid-November 2024 (previously mid-October), completing by late November 2024 (previously late October).

Voice isolation reaches macOS#

Teams voice isolation, previously unavailable on macOS desktops, rolls out to Mac users. Admins must enable the enrollUserOverride policy and the Voice isolation feature policy in the Teams admin center, and users enroll their voice profile under Teams Settings on the Recognition tab to get the improved audio input quality.

• Voice isolation in Microsoft Teams calls and meetings (opens in new tab)
• Manage voice isolation for your users' Microsoft Teams calls and meetings (opens in new tab)

Rollout: mid-October 2024, completing by late October 2024.

Better image viewing in chat#

When a chat contains multiple images, users can view and cycle through them, and each image deep-links back to the moment in the chat where it was shared.

Rollout: mid-September 2024, completing by mid-October 2024.

Microsoft Outlook: calendar drag-and-drop and mobile archives#

Drag an email onto the Calendar icon to create an event#

Users can drag and drop emails onto the Calendar icon in the left app bar of Outlook to create an event from the message.

Rollout: late October 2024, completing by late November 2024.

Online Archive arrives on iOS and Android#

Outlook for iOS and Android gains Online archive mailboxes: older email is stored where it does not occupy primary mailbox space, in a specialized mailbox that appears alongside other folders. After the rollout, users with Mailbox archive enabled see the Online Archive mailbox in the folder list, reached by tapping their profile in the top left.

Rollout: late September 2024, completing by late October 2024.

Microsoft OneDrive: deletion gets a speed bump#

Previously, users could delete shared items in File Explorer without any confirmation, and mass deletions of local items prompted only generically. After the rollout, when OneDrive is running and not paused, deleting shared items triggers a new confirmation prompt, and mass deletions of local items (more than 200 items by default) trigger an updated prompt in File Explorer.

Rollout: mid-September 2024, completing by early October 2024.

Microsoft Intune: inventory, alerts, and a Dell portal#

New alerts for Windows updates#

Devices that do not send diagnostic data to Microsoft cannot show detailed status during update deployment, and that gap was easy to miss. Two new alerts, DeviceDiagnosticDataNotReceived and MinimumOSBuildNotMet, surface these issues directly in Intune reporting, matching what Windows Update for Business reports and Log Analytics already show. Full article: New alerts for Windows updates in Microsoft Intune (opens in new tab).

Status: GA.

Device hardware inventory is coming#

Enhanced device inventory for Windows devices will give IT pros the data to answer environment questions efficiently, with expanded inventory capabilities supporting targeting, business decisions, and data security. The examples Microsoft leads with:

• Do your devices have TPM 2.0?
• Are your devices ready to update from Windows 10 to Windows 11?
• Are device batteries nearing end of life, so service can be scheduled before productivity suffers?

Full article: Device hardware inventory is coming soon to Microsoft Intune (opens in new tab). Timing: TBD.

Dell joins the OEM partner portal integration#

Starting in October 2024, a link from the Intune admin center to the Dell Management Portal provides streamlined access to Dell-specific Windows device management:

• Secure device management: recover unique per-device credentials, including current and previous BIOS passwords and BitLocker recovery keys
• Fleet management: device hardware, OS, and storage information plus per-device assigned-user name and contact
• Application management: securely pull the latest versions of select Dell enterprise applications into Intune for deployment and track their update status. Available at launch: Dell Command | Monitor, Dell Command | Endpoint Configure for Microsoft Intune, Dell Command | Update, Dell Support Assist for Business PCs, and Dell Trusted Device
• Device reporting: updates refreshed every 30 minutes

Full article: Intune expands OEM integration in partner portal (opens in new tab).

Timing: October 2024.

Quality updates install during OOBE#

All devices running Windows 11 version 22H2 or later that are enrolled with an MDM solution such as Intune will automatically download and install quality updates during the out-of-box experience. Timing: TBD.

Microsoft 365 Apps: the new Planner reaches the web#

The existing web version of Planner updates to the new Planner, matching Planner in Teams so users can move between Teams and web without relearning anything. The new Planner for the web (opens in new tab) combines the simplicity of Microsoft To Do, the collaboration of Planner, the power of Microsoft Project, and Copilot intelligence in one tool spanning individual task management through professional project management.

Rollout: mid-October 2024, completing by late November 2024.