Last week Microsoft released the much anticipated Office 365 for business roadmap. This will help to better inform admins and end users on what to expect from the service. The roadmap lists updates and enhancements to Office 365 which are either Launched, Rolling Out, In Development, or Cancelled. Each enhancement or update can be expanded to get a brief overview, and clicking on “Learn more” takes you to a more detailed explanation:
Microsoft currently lists 13 launched, 10 rolling out, and 35 in development enhancements or updates. One of the most notable updates listed in the “Rolling Out” section is titled “First Release for Office 365”, which will allow organizations to opt in to receive feature updates a minimum of two weeks early. This is a great way for Microsoft partners to “dogfood” updates and enhancements destined to be rolled out to the clients they support. To turn on this feature within Office 365, login to your admin center, go to service settings and slide button to “on” under the updates heading:
Some of the other exciting new features rolling out or in development include:
- Document conversations for OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online
- OS and Browser user reports for Office 365
- Proactive DNS records checking in administrative settings
- Smart search for OneDrive for Business with type-ahead features
- Azure AD sync services which will be an upgrade to the existing DirSync
- Data Loss Prevention in SharePoint Online
- Enhanced mail protection reporting
- Increasing OneDrive for Business storage to 1TB
- Send As link for OneDrive for Business so users can email a link to a OneDrive document
- Encryption at rest for SharePoint online
According Jake Zborowski on the official Microsoft Office Blog post announcing the roadmap, “The public roadmap will be your best source of truth for product enhancements coming to the service.”
Add the roadmap and first release program to the enhanced Message Center within the Office 365 Portal any you have a wealth of information about upcoming changes and enhancements to the Office 365 family of services.