We are aware of the numerous changes published through the M365 Message Center each week, as well as the growing number of valuable tips and educational pieces being published every month.
The M365 platform is a vast and complex environment. I realized this month that I was seeing so many posts and links that I wanted to share here that fitting it all into one monthly roundup runs the risk of creating a newsletter that no one has time to read.
This month, I’m making a few changes. I won't be putting everything I think you might want to know about in one place. Instead, I’m going to focus on some of the most critical updates I’ve seen since publishing the August roundup, and also link you to some new tools where you can view everything I’ve tagged related to M365 to read.
I mentioned recently that I have a new domain to facilitate using a domain with an M365 tenant. It also allows this newsletter to live at a subdomain. Naturally, I installed WordPress on the new domain and started posting about M365 immediately, rather than waiting until the next monthly roundup.
For example, I noticed that hold reports appeared in my tenant's account over the weekend and posted about it on the blog..
I have also started posting a complete list of everything I tagged each month. You can see those here - https://mikemcbride365.com/category/links/
The entry for September will, obviously, continue to get updated until the end of the month.
I’ll add links to new items that have already been posted there to each newsletter so that you won’t miss anything. However, if you don’t want to wait for the newsletter, you have another option available.
Let’s get into the latest news.
Copilot News:
Copilot Memory Comes in Different Types - this is going to be interesting. Are the memories that Copilot creates based on Teams chats and communication, creating artifacts? Can they be collected or managed?
Everything in Copilot is designed to create podcasts - listen to an audio recap of your meetings in Teams. (I haven’t seen this rolled out yet, but I have the same questions about what artifacts might be created.)
Bring AI to your formulas with the COPILOT function in Excel.
Worth Reading - Microsoft delays plan to let Copilot see your Teams screen
Building a Collaborative Microsoft 365 Copilot Agent: A Step-by-Step Guide
When AI Agents Go Rogue: How the New Apps & Agents View in Purview DSPM for AI Brings Peace of Mind
Maybe worth checking out - Guardians Of M365 Governance: DSPM For AI Deep Dive With Microsoft's Erica Toelle:
Non-Copilot News:
Some good DLP resources:
Deploying Data Loss Prevention using Microsoft Purview Pt 1.
Modernize Data Loss Prevention for AI with Microsoft Purview DLP
Deploying Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention
This is an important announcement for small businesses:
Worth Reading - Introducing new security and compliance add-ons for Microsoft 365 Business Premium
The new Microsoft Defender and Purview Suites unite the full capabilities of Microsoft Defender and Purview into a single, cost-effective package. This all-in-one solution delivers comprehensive security, compliance, and data protection, while helping SMB customers unlock up to 68% savings compared to buying the products separately, making it easier than ever to safeguard your organization without compromising on features or budget.
I also found some resources for other Purview Tools.
Migrate parent sensitivity labels to sensitivity label groups.
Mastering Retention Policies in Microsoft Purview (Part 1 of 5) - Go back for the rest of the series!
Speaking of series - start here - Introduction to Microsoft Purview – Part 1 (He’s currently up to Part 9 if you continue through the series.)
Also - Ray Reyes has a series of videos - Your #MicrosoftPurview L400 on steroids.
Conditional Access Essentials: Naming conventions, personas, emergency access & design process.
Purview Priority Cleanup Expands to SharePoint and OneDrive. - Similar to what I wrote about the Exchange version and eDiscovery. Yes, there are dangerous files that need to be removed, even when the location is subject to a hold.
This change will impact eDiscovery when it comes to Private channels. I’ll definitely be digging into that when the migration starts rolling out:
Microsoft Teams – Private channel functionality is expanding.
That’s all I have for this week. If you found anything useful in here, please share it with your peers, and consider becoming a paid subscriber. Now is a great time to subscribe, as I’m offering a discount to attract new subscribers and help offset some of the costs associated with the new domain and tenant.
The new tools will also allow me to create more exclusive content for paid subscribers. I’m excited to share it with you once I've finished it!