Upcoming Enhancements to Microsoft Teams Meeting Chat Controls

There are many kinds of meetings, and Teams is a great tool to have virtual meetings in. As an example, it is possible to get to the chat of the meeting and start the discussion up front or continue the discussions or ask follow up questions after the meeting is over.  But sometimes, there are scenarios where organizer would want to keep the chat closed for comments outside of the meeting timeframe. And here is a new feature coming our way, to control exactly that behavior. The Teams admin center will soon allow setting up policies that will enhance your control over meeting chats. These new options are designed to give administrators more flexibility in managing how and when participants can interact via chat during meetings. These options will be available across all platforms, including Teams for Windows and Mac desktops, Teams on the web, and Teams for iOS/Android. This update is part of the Microsoft 365 Roadmap   If you are an admin, here is where you can find and control the set

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

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.