SharePoint, Teams, & OneNote Updates!

Microsoft Teams: Option to Open In Desktop

Microsoft is testing a new option for Teams that gives users a choice of how to open Office documents. The public preview version of Microsoft Teams now allows people to open Word, Excel, and PowerPoint documents in the desktop versions of the apps by default. Before this change, Teams would open Office documents within Teams and then show the option to open them in the web or desktop Office apps.

SharePoint: Boost SharePoint News

News in SharePoint is not a new thing, but now Microsoft is getting ready to introduce a new feature called the SharePoint News Service. Here is how Microsoft describes the service:

“The SharePoint news service delivers an intelligent view of news, meaning it's targeted to you based on factors like your role or location, and further personalized based on signals in Microsoft Graph about where, how, and with whom you work. And now, for those special, priority announcements, ones that need a boost of visibility, you can push through the AI algorithms and give them a bit of the ol' human prioritization vim and vigor that can't be missed or is less likely to.”

Now you can prioritize important news and announcements, so they appear at the top of employee news feeds across Microsoft 365. You can boost the visibility of a news article for a set time, until an employee has seen your content, or until a viewer has seen the item in their feed a set number of times.
*Note* This applies only to news posts published within organizational news sites. It does not apply to Teams news.

SharePoint: Edit Page in Teams

When you add an existing modern SharePoint page or news post as a tab in a Microsoft Teams channel now you can edit it without leaving Teams.

Page authors will now be able to add or edit content, images, and any other SharePoint web part. Microsoft have also made it easier to stay in Teams by enabling people viewing the page or post to navigate using SharePoint links right within Teams.

OneNote: Microsoft To Consolidate OneNote For Windows

With its coming new OneNote app for Windows 11, Microsoft is looking to clean up the mess it has created by offering multiple, different OneNote for Windows apps.
OneNote on Windows will get a series of updates in the coming year that will include a visual refresh; new pen and inking features; a new navigational UI layout option that can be customized, and more, officials said. Microsoft is planning to unify the two different OneNote apps it supports right now on Windows -- the OneNote app installed with Office and the OneNote for Windows 10 app available in the Store -- and create a single OneNote app for Windows.

The OneNote app installed with Office is going to start getting new features and "key" existing features that are currently unique to OneNote for Windows 10 (the Store app). OneNote for Windows 10 users will get an in-app invitation at some point in the second half of 2022 to update to the new unified OneNote app.

Microsoft OneDrive: Support Ending Support For Sync Client on Older Versions of macOS

Microsoft is ending support for the OneDrive sync client on older versions of Apple’s macOS, the company has announced. Specifically, the OneDrive sync client will no longer support macOS 10.12 Sierra and 10.13 High Sierra. These versions of macOS are no longer supported by Apple, either.

Support for the OneDrive sync client on these versions of macOS is set to end on September 10th. After that date, users that already have OneDrive installed will no longer get any updates. While the apps will continue to work for now, any issues that show up won’t be fixed in these versions. You may also miss out on certain security updates. Additionally, if you try to install the OneDrive sync client on an unsupported version of macOS, it just won’t work. This change affects both personal and business accounts.

Microsoft also clarified that, going forward, it will only support the three latest versions of macOS. That means whenever a new macOS version is released, OneDrive will support that new update and the two prior ones. That’s why, right now, you’ll only be supported on macOS 10.14 (Mojave), 10.15 (Catalina), and 11 (Big Sur). macOS 12 Monterey should be released later this year, so support for macOS Mojave could also be dropped soon after that.

Microsoft Word: Track Changes Updates

Microsoft has announced some improvements coming to the Track Changes feature in Word for Windows and Mac. The company has started rolling out an update to Office Insiders that lets them track their own changes only in Word documents.

Track Changes is a built-in feature in Microsoft Word that keeps a record of all edits to the document, lets users leave comments, and more. Currently, users can see all the changes made by all users collaborating on the Word document, and it doesn’t provide an option just to review their own edits.
With this announced, new functionality, you can now tell Word to track only your changes (“Just Mine”). This allows you to track your own changes without forcing others to track theirs,” the Office Insider team explained.