The Horizon: October 2023

Here’s to a month of new possibilities in the Microsoft techosphere with updates-a-plenty, including Microsoft Viva and OneDrive. So let’s take a deeper dive and see what’s on The Horizon…

We have lift off 🚀

Last month Copilot began its long-awaited roll-out as part of a free Windows 11 release. Fast forward a month and Microsoft 365 Copilot is launching for enterprise customers on November 1, along with Microsoft 365 Chat, Microsoft’s new AI assistant.

Billed as a way to tame the complexity, eliminate the drudgery, and help you reclaim time at work, Microsoft 365 Chat has a lot to live up to. See what it can do for you…

Look out for our blog next month where we’ll be exploring practical uses for gen AI in your day-to-day work life.

And in the meantime, if you need some tips and tricks on the most productive AI prompts, see how those in the know use their AI assistants…

What’s new to Microsoft Viva?

If you’re a Microsoft Viva user you’ll love these new Viva capabilities, designed to help employees and communicators improve productivity, engagement, and alignment across web, mobile, and app usage.

Highlights include:

  • Improved customizable landing page
  • Targeted announcements in Viva Connections
  • New cards for Viva Connections, including News card, Search Template card, and People Search card
  • New ‘Article’ long-form post type for Viva Engage
  • Copilot-powered goal recommendations for Viva Goals
  • Viva Amplify is here! Streamline communications through centralized campaign management, multi-channel publishing, and more.
Redesigned sections and icons in Viva Connections highlight content and links.
Redesigned sections and icons in Viva Connections highlight content and links.

Read on for more Viva details and updates…

Favorites & Shortcuts in OneDrive

As part of OneDrive’s latest update you’ll find two new ways to organize your content and spend less time searching for files and folders.

The Favorites view in OneDrive for Web shows all the files you have favorited from OneDrive, SharePoint and other Microsoft 365 apps.
The Favorites view in OneDrive for Web shows all the files you have favorited from OneDrive, SharePoint and other Microsoft 365 apps.

Favoriting files and folders allows you to view your most current or important files all in one place, including content you’ve favorited from other Microsoft apps.

To favorite a file or folder, simply click the star next to the folder or file name and it will appear in your favorites.

Folder shortcuts allow you to view and access folders or an entire document library from multiple SharePoint sites in one place, without asking anyone to move anything.

File shortcuts are due to launch in December 2023. See this blog by Microsoft Principal Program Manager Olga Dalecka for more…

Cloudwell App Updates

Here’s what you need to know about Cloudwell’s latest Calendar Overlay update.

Cloudwell Calendar Overlay v3.5.1.0

Enhancements

Enhanced Print Capabilities: Introducing improved print functionalities, designed to provide a cleaner and more user-friendly printing experience for your calendar events.

Location Specification for Exchange Calendar Events: We’ve enhanced the “add event form” by adding a field that allows users to specify a location for their Exchange calendar events, enabling better organization and clarity.

Resolved Issues

Event Clicking in Certain Views: Fixed an issue where clicking on a SharePoint or iCal event in specific views did not function correctly. Users can now interact with events seamlessly across all views.

Did we mention it’s our birthday?

It seems like only yesterday that we were celebrating 10 years of Cloudwell but now we need to add an extra candle to the cake.

We’ve had so many highlights this year, including:

We’d like to say a huge thank you to the people who made it possible: our amazing customers and awesome team.

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At Cloudwell, as a Microsoft Gold Partner, we make it our business to provide innovative enterprise solutions for your business. 

Get in touch and see how we can help solve your biggest challenges.