Create avatars from picture or photo is live

on
Avatars in Teams is a way to express your presence without turning your camera on in meetings, and it is used when entering a Mesh meeting place. I must admit I du prefer the use of real video, but I do understand the user scenarios where an avatar might come in handy.  Depending on your preferences, the avatar can be created to your liking, and there are many options to choose from when it comes to skin color, body type, face frame, colors and more. Sometimes, I think there are always too many options, and I never get a result that actually looks like me (if that was my intent). The avatar feature has been around for a while, but I am obviously not the only one thinking my avatar could and should look more like me. Microsoft has now released a feature that allows you to create an avatar directly from an image (taken when you create the avatar) or by uploading an existing photo.  The feature seems to be available for most Teams SKU's (Business and E3/E5, even essentials) at th...

Viva pulse coming out of preview, SharePoint moving to use only B2B invitations and helping users select the most secure MFA option

on

Viva Pulse is a new feature coming to organizations who have invested in the Viva platform. Viva pulse is a new application, organizations can use to measure the "satisfaction temperature" of their employees. It's easy to use for both "Feedback authors" and "Feedback providers", and is of course fully integrated into Teams to make things easily accessible for all. As an organization admin, reading up on the following material is a great way to get started. 

Viva Pulse preview was announced to end on July 14th, and according to the message center, it should be rolling out around the 20th of July to users who have been assigned with the Viva Suite license. The official roadmap item is: 117393

Microsoft is making changes to the guest invitation flow in SharePoint. The flow is moving away from the original SharePoint engine, and into the new Azure B2B invitation manager. Sharing of files remains the same, but when users are being invited to sites the new invitation experience is used. There are several settings to consider, and it is recommended for admins to go through these policies to make collaboration easier. This update should be rolling out by the end of July.

MFA is getting a new tweak. By adding a "System-preferred" policy and setting it as default, the goal is to always prompt the user for the most secure MFA option available to them. This to avoid the use of weaker options such as SMS just because the user has registered for it previously. 

Admins should go through these settings to make sure any necessary exceptions are made for those who for some reason need to use a less secure MFA option than the more secure MFA they might have registered for. The rollout has begun, and should be completed by August.