Microsoft Ignite: Here Are the New Microsoft 365 Collaboration FeaturesMicrosoft Ignite: Here Are the New Microsoft 365 Collaboration Features
Dynamics 365, Microsoft Edge, and Azure all got updates to boost multi-person collaboration.
October 14, 2022
At Microsoft's signature event this past week, collaboration priorities like improving workflow and communications came to the forefront. Here are the collaboration announcements that showed Microsoft's increasing emphasis on efficient and effective communications.
As of November 2022, Teams users will be able to access Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central data even if they don't have a Dynamics 365 license. Being able to access the data within Teams is part of the company's push to integrate applications for more efficient workflows, as the company also announced another Dynamics 365/Teams integration with users' new ability to access subject matter experts over Teams within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
To this point, Dynamics 365 users can now automate an AI-generated conversation summary in Dynamics 365 Customer Service and share it with teammates using Teams, even if the teammate is not an original member of the customer service chat, they can get up to speed quickly by opting into the customer’s chat history to get visibility and context to conversations. "This is especially helpful in scenarios where a customer service agent has a case transferred to them,” a company blog noted.
The auto-generated, structured conversation summary includes context, a summary of the customer issue, and the result of the attempted resolution. The feature is currently in preview and expected to hit general availability sometime in October 2022.
The company also announced a browser-based feature, Microsoft Edge Workspaces. This is a shared set of browser tabs that will allow groups to view the same websites and latest working files in one place. The practical application here is to allow team collaboration within the browser, and as things change on different websites — with data entry or updating something on a website, the users' tabs are updated in real time. The feature is currently in enterprise public preview.
In another example of breaking down the silo between applications and focusing more on task-based workflows, Microsoft Edge is now also offering a sidebar to allow users to stay within their browser pane and access Office or Outlook.
Finally, Microsoft has added a new way for users to collaborate with sensitive or classified content. Microsoft Purview Information Protection can auto-classify sensitive documents, and it will allow multiple, properly credentialed authors to edit labeled and protected documents, even on mobile devices. The auto-classification feature is in preview while the collaborative editing feature is generally available.
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