On this week’s show, Steve and Paul get together while Paul’s on the road and discuss the biggest news worth discussing in the world of Microsoft 365. We chat about the new Games feature in Teams – and come up with some use cases for where it might be appropriate to use – and debate the latest Exchange Server updates and Microsoft’s change to Exchange servicing.
Microsoft launched Games for Work, a new app in Microsoft Teams
Is your job all work and no play? Then you’ll rejoice as Microsoft has launched a new app for Teams, Games for Work. It’s not quite Xbox Live Ultimate with Cloud Gaming, but it’s intended to provide web-based games, like Solitaire, inside a Teams meeting.
On the show we discuss this and when it’s likely to be a good thing. Naturally, it might not look great if you are in the office and your boss walks past and you are playing a game with a colleague – but if your office is the kind of place that has a ping-pong table or Xbox in the coffee room, then it could work well for lunch break games & catch ups with colleagues. Just remember to invite your boss…
Read more about it here, and Tony’s article on how to disable it if that’s what you need to do.
Get your patching game on, because it’s Exchange Server Security Update Time
Microsoft released the November 2022 Exchange Server Security updates for Exchange 2013 through 2019, which you need to consider applying as soon as possible. We discuss the patches on the show, and that Microsoft will be holding off on releasing a Cumulative Update before the end of 2023, and instead waiting until 2023. This is, we think, a good thing because not many organizations want to be rolling out CUs in December right before breaking up for Christmas or during a busy, critical time of the year.
Read more about the Security Updates here, and here for more about Microsoft’s changes to Exchange Server Servicing.
Highlights from the Roadmap
We discuss two interesting features that hit the roadmap for Microsoft 365 over the last few weeks.
First up, we’ve got Federated Group Calling. Technically, Microsoft has had feature parity with Skype for Business for some time, but this feature makes it feel like there’s additional parity (because Skype for Business auto-escalated calls to meetings, and Teams doesn’t). In January 2023, this feature will launch and allow you to start video and voice calls in group chats that include external (federated) contacts.
And finally – Excel gets the ability for in-cell images, with a new IMAGE function. While you can insert images into Excel worksheets, they are not within cells. This new feature might not seem obviously useful, but we wonder if this will be helpful for folks who use Microsoft Forms, for example, and want to be able to receive images in the responses, and have those embedded into the Excel worksheet. This feature arrives next month – in December 2022
We’ll see you back for the next episode in December.
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