Relocation of Teams Meeting Transcripts to OneDrive Coming in June, I Think.
If my memory serves, this was supposed to happen last month, but it's been delayed.
I should start taking screenshots when looking at the Microsoft Roadmap. There have been numerous occasions when I’ve been anticipating the rollout of a new feature or change, only to find it’s been pushed back from the date I thought it would roll out.
I think that is what has happened with this feature.
The roadmap item was last updated on April 26.
I believe that was to push it back to a June rollout. I had planned to return from my regular week away from this newsletter with a deep dive into this change. Alas, it’s not there for me to test.
You may ask yourself why this seemingly small change to a file's location is such a big deal to me. That’s a fair question. Putting the transcript in OneDrive instead of the Exchange substrate might not seem like a big deal. Still, it changes one crucial dynamic regarding eDiscovery and collection.
Back in November, I wrote an issue about the genuine hazards of doing eDiscovery in M365 with an e3 license. One of those risks?
Teams - meeting transcripts - I took a look at how Premium eDiscovery has progressed when it comes to being able to collect transcripts a few months ago. Standard hasn’t progressed that far. You can search for the text of a transcript, but what gets collected is only the MP4 video recording of the meeting. No transcript is to be seen.
Because Standard eDiscovery can't search the substrate area of the Exchange mailbox where transcripts are stored, you cannot collect a transcript from a meeting. You can only collect the MP4 recording.
Suppose you need a meeting transcript as part of litigation or investigation. In that case, the only options are to use Premium eDiscovery or have someone with access to the original meeting in Teams download a copy of the transcript that appears there.
Some investigations might require more confidentiality than asking someone to retrieve a meeting transcript.
With this change, the transcript should be available for collection from the user's OneDrive. This is an important change for e3 licensees, especially as we see more organizations moving toward Copilot. Copilot meeting recaps will be in high demand, meaning more meetings will be recorded so that Copilot can access a transcript and provide a recap to those unable to attend the meeting.
See also this coming feature -
Outlook: Follow a meeting in new Outlook for Windows and web
Follow is a new meeting response (RSVP) option that goes beyond the traditional Accept, Tentative and Decline choices geared towards individuals with high meeting loads and conflicting meetings each day. Follow is the ideal RSVP option for meetings you can't attend but still want to stay engaged and receive info about. Other attendees will be able to see if you are following a meeting. This feature will be available in the new Outlook for Windows and Outlook on the web.
That feature is dated to start rolling out in April 2024, and since it’s now May 7, I’m going to guess it is also delayed.
With growing demand for access to transcripts, it makes sense for Microsoft to store them in an accessible place, OneDrive fits that bill. I believe this has been the impetus for this change. The e3 eDiscovery benfit might just be a side-effect. But it’s a happy one.
Of course, with this change we also get something else to think about. What’s your retention policy for OneDrive? Should the retention for transcripts follow the auto-deletion policy for recordings? Would referencing the transcript in a Copilot prompt create some sort of family relationship with the Copilot message? If we’ve enabled automatic labeling for shared files, would the transcript pick up that label when shared in the Meeting chat?
Where, exactly, are the transcripts stored? With the recording, or with the meeting notes?
These are all good questions. Ones I had hoped to dive into, but we’ll have to wait.
What do you think? What questions do you have about this change? Does it ease your fear of having to track down one of the meeting attendees to get a copy of the transcript, or loading a copy of the MP4 to Stream to generate a transcript yourself?
What roadmap items are you waiting on?
Some other roadmap items related to eDiscovery that have dates that have passed already, without seeing a roll out, include -
Both of these have some potential impact on how we work in Premium eDiscovery, but maybe the most desirable change on the roadmap right now is planned for December:
Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery - Review set query report
While we wait on those, however, this might be a good time to look at some older features and check to see if things have improved. I’ve got a few in mind for next week, when we get back to deep dives for paid subscribers. I’m looking forward to seeing what'may have changed. I’m hopeful some of the inconsistencies have been ironed out, but cynical enough to not hold my breathe. ;-)
That’s the only way.