Welcome to our annual Office 365 Features Roadmap for 2022! 2021 was an exciting year for Office 365. Many new features were added to help remote workers globally do business more efficiently. Two new tools were added as well; Microsoft Viva and Microsoft Lists to Teams. 2022 may have new tools as well, but below are the main features coming up in 2022 that we are most excited about.
Microsoft 365 Admin Center
The Microsoft 365 Admin Center has 17 features in development and 5 features rolling out. Many of these focus on Microsoft Teams usage. Microsoft Teams saw heavy growth in 2020 and 2021 so it makes sense companies are now looking to analyze how Microsoft Teams is specifically being used. We have noticed A LOT of clean-up and organization requests related to Microsoft Teams which all comes back to governance. If you are one of those companies, please reach out to us; you CAN be organized in MS Teams!
Source: Microsoft
Microsoft Compliance Center
Getting insights into Microsoft Teams in the Admin Center is “step 1” for companies. Many companies are now catching on to the very large set of compliance tools within Office 365. Microsoft is adding over 80 features to the Office 365 Compliance Center to help companies control their information. This ranges from eDiscovery, advanced audit searching, data encryption, risk management and so much more. We are really excited to continue helping companies implementing both basic and advanced compliance measures within Office 365. You no longer need multiple, expensive 3rd party tools to manage what you already pay for.
Source: Microsoft
Microsoft Power Apps
Microsoft Power Apps continues to be the workhorse for building web apps within Office 365 and companies globally. The ability to create both PC and phone-friendly apps using all your existing business data has been a game changer since Power Apps was released. 2022 will be like every other year for Power Apps; tons of features being added!
The list of upcoming updates here is constantly being added to so check back often! The features we are most interested in are the unified and modern Power Apps designer, the ability to reused and organize business logic in your app with components as well as a slew of mixed reality features which we have been finding very useful for companies with remote workers out in the field or in satellite plants or locations such as package delivery, safety inspections and quality checklists.
Microsoft Teams
It should come as no surprise that Microsoft Teams has the most features being added in 2022. With 200+features slated already, the app will continue to evolve and be the world-class leader is business collaboration. We cannot even begin to address all the changes coming in a single article. All aspects of Teams will continue to be enhanced from chats to meetings, tighter integrations with the Power Platform products and of course a slew of industry-leading security and compliance updates. eSoftware will be very busy keeping oon top of the industry news for Microsoft Teams in 2022 to help companies implement the best practices for both the short and long term.
Check out the massive features list here.
Microsoft Power Automate
Power Automate is an interesting platform for 2022. While there are some features being added related to automation Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Power Apps, most of what is currently slated for 2022 focuses on two core components: desktop flows and process advisor.
Desktop flows are not our favorite, at least for now, as they require premium Power Apps licensing to use. Desktop flows have their time and place, especially when put on a server as a timed service to automate certain tasks. By and large though, desktop flows can get expensive and complicated. We highly recommend vetting both short- and long-term goals if you find yourself building something that requires desktop flows. We can help you with that analysis with our Power Automate consulting services.
Process advisor is an amazing new (paid) tool. It analyzes workflow patterns within Office 365 and helps advise on possible automation improvement areas. See here. Since it’s inception, we have always strived to minimize licensing cost impacts of the Microsoft Power Platform as it can add up fast. The process advisor adds a unique scenario though where we now advise companies to assign beginner and advanced uses of a business process a Power Automate licenses at a cost of $15/ month and have both of them do the same process. Assuming the beginner has had at least rudimentary training on a process, you can learn a lot about that business process and how people work. You can them use that data to see how business processes can be improved both for beginner users as well as advanced users, depending on what your turnover rate is for a specific job function.
Source: Microsoft
Microsoft SharePoint Online (Microsoft Lists)
Last, but not least, is our dear-old friend SharePoint Online. A lot of what is coming for SharePoint Online is now packaged as Microsoft Lists which can be readily displayed in Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Lists continues to get more a more column types and visuals that help companies view and analyze their data like never before. These lists are already mobile responsive too and play nicely in Microsoft Teams. Also coming for 2022 is more features around Microsoft Steam which is the video platform within Office 365 and how it interacts with both SharePoint Online and OneDrive. And in case you didn’t know, all those recorded meetings in Microsoft Teams end up not only in Microsoft Stream, but in OneDrive for Business.
Us comically trying to explain that:
- Microsoft Teams recorded meetings save to
- Microsoft Stream. Those files can be found in
- Microsoft OneDrive for Business which is a front-end to
- Microsoft SharePoint Online
Easy huh? Now imagine the compliance and security needed for that. Need help? Contact us!
Source: Microsoft
In Conclusion
That’s it for now, but we are very excited for the Office 365 Features Roadmap for 2022. It will surely create new collaboration opportunities for companies of all sizes. There are many more features rolling out for other products as well which can be found here, so check back often for the latest and greatest of what’s to come in 2022!
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