The holiday season is in full swing. For some, it's a "slow season" where nothing happens, while for others, it's a time of intense work. Microsoft is no exception, constantly improving and adding new features to its solutions. Custom graphics, easier notification management in Teams, better AI-generated Word document summaries, new products in the Dynamics 365 family, and new and updated connectors in Power BI are just a glimpse of what appeared last month. We invite you to read the latest article in the "What's New in Microsoft Business Applications" series, where we present selected updates from the world of Microsoft cloud services.
Microsoft Teams – july summary
A well-configured and organized Teams setup ensures that everything is within reach without leaving the app. It's no surprise that Microsoft continually strives to enhance and enrich its functionality. Last month, the tech giant from Redmond introduced the ability to create and use custom reactions and icons (emojis). Once created, added to Teams, and sent in a chat, your custom reaction will be visible to all participants. Interestingly, this feature can be managed by an administrator from the tool's admin console, allowing them to remove, disable, or grant specific users the right to create custom reactions.
Small but useful improvements have been made to notifications in Teams. Since not everyone may like the default sounds, Microsoft now allows users to manage notification sounds, deciding whether a sound should be played and, if so, what sound should be used for standard and urgent/priority events. Additionally, users can now enable or disable notifications for new posts within a specific channel.
Small but useful improvements have been made to notifications in Teams. Since not everyone may like the default sounds, Microsoft now allows users to manage notification sounds, deciding whether a sound should be played and, if so, what sound should be used for standard and urgent/priority events. Additionally, users can now enable or disable notifications for new posts within a specific channel.
Regarding Teams meetings, new features have been introduced for the view, such as the gallery, which can be adjusted as needed. By default, the tool is set to display 16 participants on one screen in a tile format, but this number can be increased to 49. Additionally, settings can be adjusted to prioritize displaying participants with their cameras on (video) over those with cameras off.
What's new in Copilot for Microsoft 365?
Microsoft aims to make AI features ubiquitous and available in almost every cloud service within Microsoft 365. However, Copilot will work as well as the quality of our prompts. Therefore, if you are learning how to create effective prompts and need ideas, it's worth checking out Copilot Lab. Here, you will find plenty of inspiration, and a July improvement allows for quick testing of a command by clicking "Try in...". This eliminates the need for copying and pasting – everything is done in a few clicks.
While creating emails with the AI assistant in Outlook is not new, a change introduced in July provides additional capabilities. You can now create emails based on a prompt directly from the chat window with Copilot. In Outlook, just click the Copilot icon in the upper right corner. The assistant will recognize which email you are reading, allowing you to ask it to draft a response. Furthermore, you can use the chat with Copilot to manage your email with commands like "Move all messages from X to folder Y". This feature rollout began in July 2024.
Another improvement is in Word document summaries. In short, Copilot can now summarize documents containing 80,000 words, which is four times more than when Copilot first appeared in Word.
Customer Service Premium and Contact Center – new Dynamics enter the game
Exciting news has emerged for Dynamics 365, not just in terms of functional changes. The changes are evident in the July edition of the Dynamics 365 licensing guide. It reveals that Microsoft has introduced two new solutions to the Dynamics 365 product family. The first is Dynamics 365 Contact Center, an AI-based solution designed to automate and improve the efficiency of every customer outreach channel. This includes providing easy self-service through chat and voice bots, automatically redirecting inquiries to the right people, and continuously analyzing the effectiveness of each customer interaction channel.
The second service is familiar – it's another version of Dynamics 365 Customer Service. After Professional and Enterprise, Dynamics 365 Customer Service Premium has been introduced, which can be summarized simply – it's Dynamics 365 Customer Service that includes Dynamics 365 Contact Center.
Power BI – latest changes and improvements
As with every month, in July, Microsoft also updated its Business Intelligence tool. One of the updates is the ability to create and manage security roles for specific tables in Power BI Desktop. This feature is now generally available, allowing users to set specific security measures from the Power BI client without needing to use DAX language – though that option is still available if desired.
Power BI closely collaborates with PowerPoint for storytelling. Many users have likely wanted to embed a Power BI report in a presentation slide. This option was already available, but to make exporting Power BI content to PowerPoint easier, a pop-up now appears where users can choose how to embed the content: as interactive data or as an image.
Discover how the changes and innovations Microsoft introduces to its cloud services can impact your business and improve user convenience – fill out the form at the bottom of the page and schedule a free consultation with our advisor!
