Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (2024)

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (1)

One of the main challenges when using Microsoft 365 products and services is to stay aware of announcements, updates and upcoming features. This applies to all responsible roles at our customers as well as for IT Consultants or Engineers guiding others.

This article, written by two Microsoft Cloud Solution Architects (formerly known as Customer Engineers or Premier Field Engineers), provides an overview of choices, how to gain information and awareness on upcoming changes in Microsoft/Office 365. Different options, tools and services with their respective audience are compared with each other to help to decide what approach best suits the target audience’s needs.

At the end of this post we cover the official Microsoft 365 Change Guide. You will find background information to get a general understanding what continuous updates ("evergreening") mean, how they work and why you should adjust your service management processes.

Wondering how you can stay ahead on what’s happening next in M365/O365?

Check the role guide section

to find out what you could do.

Possible options how to stay ahead

There are various ways to keep yourself informed about what is happening. Read about some of them below. Be aware that this list is not claiming to cover all existing options or information sources. This list is based on our experience as trusted advisors working for multiple customers in the field. Do you know about additional sources, tools or solutions that are missing in this post? Speak up in the comments and let the authors know about it.

  • Microsoft 365 Roadmap
  • Office 365 Roadmap Watch
  • Microsoft 365 Message Center
  • Microsoft 365 Message Center Weekly Digest Email
  • Service Communications API in Microsoft Graph
  • 365 Message Center Show
  • Monthly Technical Update Briefing
  • Microsoft 365 Service Health Hub
  • Microsoft 365 Message Center Planner Syncing
  • Microsoft Tech Community Blogs

Microsoft 365 Roadmap

Publisher:

Microsoft

Source:

Microsoft 365 Roadmap Website:
https://aka.ms/m365roadmap

Description:

The Microsoft 365 Roadmap Website is the official resource for all roadmap related information. Updates usually happen twice a week, related to all products, features and services released across Microsoft 365.

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (2)

The intuitive website UI, that is offering filtering by certain options and categories, gives access to all roadmap items and their details.

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (3)

Searching for and sharing of features is possible as well as a download (CSV Format) functionality. An RSS feed subscription is available and recommended for anyone professionally dealing with M365/O365.

Conclusion:

The Microsoft 365 Roadmap should be considered “the truth”. It is the official and main channel for all long-term change announcements and should be monitored by most roles dealing with M365/O365. Every roadmap item comes with a targeted release estimation, so this is the best way to get information about long term changes or feature updates.

One of the challenges with the Microsoft 365 Roadmap is the release date. Keep in mind that those dates are estimates and subject to change. This doesn’t mean the update or feature will be available within your Tenant at this specific date. The complexity or requirements of a feature, quality checks, feedback while in preview (and more) all those topics can affect the date when a feature will be “really” available within your tenant.

Recommended Audience:

M365/O365 Developer
M365/O365 Consultant
M365/O365 Global Administrator

M365/O365 Security Administrator
M365/O365 Service Administrator
IT-Service Owner
IT-Change Coordinator
IT-Enthusiast / Power User

Recommended Action:

Create an RSS subscription. You can quickly consume the RSS feed within a Microsoft Teams channel as well (Using Teams RSS Connector or via Flow). If necessary, you can easily search and export roadmap items on the website.

Microsoft 365 Roadmap Watch

Publisher:
Joe Palarchio, Microsoft Employee

Source:

Description:

This project helps monitoring the Official Microsoft 365 Roadmap and tracks changes that occur with each roadmap update. Changes can be reviewed via the "Browse by Feature" section of the site. You can subscribe to an RSS feed to get notified when updates occur.

The website offers a great way to keep track of chances in the Roadmap. Author of the project is Joe Palarchio. He is a Microsoft employee, but the project itself is not affiliated with Microsoft.

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (4)

Conclusion:

Keeping track of the official Microsoft 365 Roadmap alone can be challenging, due to the amount of changes. Roadmap Watch simplifies monitoring the roadmap. This solution helps to aggregate roadmap updates and does not provide further information on the roadmap item itself.

Recommended Audience:

M365/O365 Developer
M365/O365 Consultant
M365/O365 Global Administrator

M365/O365 Security Administrator
M365/O365 Service Administrator
IT-Service Owner
IT-Change Coordinator
IT-Enthusiast / Power User

Recommended action:
Create an RSS subscription and use the Browse by Feature section of the project website.

Microsoft 365 Message Center

Publisher:

Microsoft

Source:

Microsoft 365 Message Center. Microsoft Documentation:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/admin/manage/message-center

Description:

To learn about upcoming changes, including new and changed features, planned maintenance, or other important announcements affecting your tenant, go to theMessage center within your tenants admin center. That's the channel where Microsoft communicates to you or posts official announcements and let you take a proactive approach to change management. Each post gives you a high-level overview of a planned change and how it may affect your users, and links out to more detailed information to help you prepare.

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (5)

The Message Center preferences offers the ability to send out weekly email digest as well as emails for major updates and data privacy messages. Administrators with access to the Message Center should subscribe this type of emails. A best practice is to create an email distribution list, that receives weekly digest mails. Members of this email distribution list, that have no access to the Message Center itself, can participate from this channel as well.


Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (6)

You can also use the Microsoft 365 Admin app on your mobile device to view Message center, which is a great way to stay current with push notifications.

Conclusion:

Depending on your role and permissions, you should monitor your tenants Message Center constantly. Check the list of administrative roles, that do not have access to the Message Center. Even though you can configure Email alerts and digest messages, the amount of data available can make it difficult not to lose the overview. A general monitoring strategy should be discussed with other administrators in your organization.

Recommended Audience:

M365/O365 Developer (Weekly Digest Email)
M365/O365 Global Administrator

M365/O365 Security Administrator
M365/O365 Service Administrator
IT-Service Owner
IT-Change Coordinator (Weekly Digest Email)
Business- / IT-Decision Maker (Weekly Digest Email)

Recommended Action:

Get familiar with the Message Center and its features. Go to the Message Center Preferences and configure a weekly email digest and email alerts for major updates. Discuss possibilities to monitor Message Center content within your organization. Review additional tools and solutions (mentioned in this article), that can help to implement an efficient Message Center monitoring.

Service Communications API in Microsoft Graph

Publisher:

Microsoft

Source:

Overview for accessing service health and communications in Microsoft Graph:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/service-communications-concept-overview

Description:

Microsoft offers an API, that provides access to various information of Microsoft cloud services, including service health status and message center posts. This enables developers and IT pros to build custom solutions to gather events and messages as well as to get the current state of M365/O365 services. You can use this API to:

  • Get service health for a tenant
  • Get message center posts for a tenant
  • Integrate service communications data into custom workflows
  • Build customer-facing dashboards

Developers who want to learn more about the capabilities of this API should read the Microsoft Documentation: Working with service communications API in Microsoft Graph.

Conclusion:

The Service Communications API in Microsoft Graph offers an additional source of information that can be used by administrators or developers to create your own solution and help your organization to get the information you need to be prepared for upcoming changes.

Recommended Audience:

M365/O365 Developer
M365/O365 Global Administrator

M365/O365 Security Administrator
M365/O365 Service Administrator

Recommended Action:

If you are looking for possibilities to build a custom solution that is supporting your change management process, Developers or IT pros should take a look at the Service Communications API in Microsoft Graph and its documentation.

365 Message Center Show

Publisher:

Darrell Webster (MVP)
Daniel Glenn (MVP)

Source:

Description:

A weekly review of the Microsoft 365 Message Center that is published every Monday by two MVPs (Darrell Webster and Daniel Glenn). Recent Message Center items are discussed by the hosts in the 30-45 minute episodes by adding context or real-world examples.

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (7)

Conclusion:

The weekly episodes of the 365 Message Center Show are a good way to get further details and context for new Message Center items.

Recommended Audience:

M365/O365 Consultant
M365/O365 Global Administrator
M365/O365 Service Administrator
IT-Service Owner
IT-Enthusiast / Power User

Recommended Action:

Schedule 45 minutes in your calendar each week to watch the videocast and catch up with what recently was announced in the Message Center and to clarify how you can benefit from those updates.

Microsoft 365 Service Health Hub

Publisher:

Microsoft Services

Source:

Available for Microsoft Premier/Unified Support Customers.
Contact your Customer Success Account Manager (CSAM) for more information.

Description:

The Microsoft 365 Service Health Hub (formerly known as Office 365 Service Health Hub) project is about building a fully automated solution around Azure DevOps (alternatively Planner) and Microsoft Teams as a central collaboration platform within an organization to provide tools to take control and be fully prepared for the changes in Microsoft 365. Administrators, developers, and other responsible roles automatically get the information they need for their workload responsibilities by tasks that are automatically created and assigned to them through this solution.

Message Center, Service Health and Microsoft 365 Roadmap Notifications can get posted to Teams for general awareness, even for roles with no access to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Notifications can be routed to dedicated channels based on the communication metadata, to target specific teams within the organization and inform them about changes within the workloads important to them. Teams is also used to inform about new work items that are linked in the post within the Teams channel:

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (8)

How about Azure DevOps automatically creating work items for any new Message Center, Service Health and Microsoft 365 Roadmap notifications? Assign tasks to people in charge and never miss important changes. Not using Azure DevOps? Tasks can alternatively be saved in a Planner bucket as well. Integration with 3rd party systems like ServiceNow or Jira is also an option; however, it’s not offered directly out-of-the-box but can be implementedvia LogicApps.

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (9)

The Microsoft 365 Service Health Hub also offers a Teams App, which includes following features:

  • Dashboard presenting most important information about the events in your tenant
  • Detailed information about service health state, active incidents and advisories, and calendar representation of those events for the past 6 months
  • Extensive advisory and incident reports which provide a great level of insight and analysis of the service health events for the past 6 months
  • Extensive list of updates through Message Center communication and roadmap communication

The Teams App is one-stop-shop for everything regarding tenant service health and upcoming features. It’s bringing all available information to one single place and provides you with the flexibility of defining the target audience, even for the roles without direct access to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

Conclusion:

The solution is an excellent way to automatically create tasks for relevant roles involved in M365/O365 Change Management. Organizations that aim for operational excellence and try to improve processes to minimize risks and bad surprises, are recommended to have a look at this project. The solution needs to be implemented and customized by Microsoft Services. The minimal implementation effort pays off immediately.

Recommended Audience:

M365/O365 Developer
M365/O365 Global Administrator

M365/O365 Security Administrator
M365/O365 Service Administrator
IT-Service Owner
IT-Change Coordinator

Recommended Action:

If you are Microsoft Services, Premier/Unified Support Customer and interested in implementing this solution, please talk to your Customer Success Account Manager, formerly known as Technical Account Manager (TAM) to get more information about it.

Microsoft 365 Message Center Planner Syncing

Publisher:

Microsoft

Source:

Microsoft 365 Message Center. Microsoft Documentation:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/planner/track-message-center-tasks-planner

Description:

Non-Global Admins or Non-Service Administrators are not able to see the Microsoft 365 Message Center. How about an automated way, that reads the Message Center and posts relevant information to Planner? Message Center Synchronisation to a Planner Plan can be set up in a few minutes.

The idea is reminding us of theMicrosoft 365 Service Health Hubsolution mentioned earlier in this article. Compared to theMicrosoft 365 Service Health Hubsolution this is a more simplified approach that just covers basic functionality but is very easy to implement.

Bring over notifications from the Message Center automatically into workload related Planner buckets:

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (10)

Conclusion:

Similar like theOffice 365 Service Health Hubsolution from Microsoft Services, Microsoft 365 Message Center Planner Syncing is an easy way to automatically manage changes by syncing Message Center items to a Planner Plan. In the Plan, synced tasks can be assigned to people in charge.

Recommended Audience:

M365/O365 Developer
M365/O365 Global Administrator

M365/O365 Security Administrator
M365/O365 Service Administrator
IT-Service Owner
IT-Change Coordinator

Recommended Action:

Work through the Microsoft Message Center Planner Syncing documentation and review the step-by-step implementation guide. Adopt it to fit your organization’s needs.

Monthly Technical Update Briefing

Publisher:

Microsoft Services

Source:

Available for Microsoft Premier/Unified Support Customers.
Contact your Customer Success Account Manager (CSAM) for more information.

Description:

Change management has never been so important as of today when consuming cloud technology. There is no way to stop features from being released, however by staying proactively informed you can act accordingly.
The Office 365 monthly Technical Update Briefing (TUB) is a monthly recurring presentation, delivered by skilled Cloud Solution Architect (CSA). The CSA explains the feature, addresses the impact for your organization so that you can act accordingly if needed. The Technical Update Briefing sessions contain all our Office 365 collaboration and communication applications such as: Teams, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Viva and others. It provides IT professionals with proactive information on new announcements or updates needing change management attention.
TUB delivers the short-and long-term roadmap of future Office 365 capabilities and features:

  • Ensures new features can be evaluated, planned, implemented and adopted in your organization

  • Enabling ongoing value of Office 365 investment by receiving guidance on new features and updates

  • Understanding administrative and/or user impact of announcements

  • Highlights changes and updates that might require special attention by your organization

  • Understand infrastructure updates to consider in your hybrid environment

  • Provides best practices and examples on upcoming updates

  • Understand service updates and fixes to train your helpdesk staff


Presented by one or more Microsoft Cloud Solution Architects (CSA), the monthly recurring WorkshopPlus consists of multiple hours of delivery. It contains information on new Office 365 features, feature updates and service changes, rollout timelines and further roadmap information. The delivery is adjusted based on customer needs, priorities, and license and application usage. There are Demos, Q&A and Post-Delivery follow-ups included in this service as well. It really creates an opportunity to be informed about what's coming and to discuss this with relevant roles within your organization facilitated by a Microsoft CSA.

Due to growing demand from our customers and with increasing number of updates, there are other TUB variants available with a different focus, such as Security&Compliance Update Briefing and Azure Update Briefing.

Sample content from a former TUB announcement:

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (11)

Conclusion:

TUB is a very detailed way to get relevant information to the right audience and making sure you stay ahead. The interactive format offers more than just plain news about What’s New. Unique selling point is the possibility to ask the experts (Cloud Solution Architects) during the delivery. Demos, Q&A and follow-ups add the value which Microsoft Enterprise customers are looking for.

Recommended Audience:

M365/O365 Global Administrator
M365/O365 Security Administrator
M365/O365 Service Administrator
IT-Service Owner
IT-Change Coordinator

Recommended Action:

If you are Microsoft Services, Premier/Unified Support Customer and interested in monthly Technical Update Briefings, please talk to your Customer Success Account Manager (CSAM), formerly known as Technical Account Manager (TAM) about the offering: WorkshopPlus: Office 365 - Technical Update Briefing (Dedicated Session 1 Day).

Microsoft Tech Community Blogs

Publisher:

Microsoft

Source:

Microsoft Tech Community Blogs:

  • Copilot for Microsoft 365 Blog
    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/copilot-for-microsoft-365/bg-p/Microsoft365CopilotBlog
  • Security, Compliance, and Identity
    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/security-compliance-and-identity/bg-p/MicrosoftSecurityandCom...
  • Microsoft Teams Blog
    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/bg-p/MicrosoftTeamsBlog
  • Microsoft Viva Blog
    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-viva-blog/bg-p/MicrosoftVivaBlog
  • Microsoft SharePoint Blog
    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-sharepoint-blog/bg-p/SPBlog
  • Microsoft Exchange Team Blog
    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/bg-p/Exchange
  • Viva Engage / Yammer Blog
    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/yammer-blog/bg-p/YammerBlog
  • Planner Blog
    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/planner-blog/bg-p/PlannerBlog
  • Microsoft 365 Blog
    https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/bg-p/microsoft_365blog

Description:

Microsoft Tech Community Blogs are a great source forbest practices,news,and trends.The product groups as well asother experts from the field (e.g. Engineersfrom Microsoft Services)publish content that is relevant for everyone dealing with Microsoft 365.

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (12)

Conclusion:

There is avarietyof relevant blogs on Microsoft Tech Community. All workloads are covered by their product groups.
Articlesthatarepublishedherearenot just announcinglatestupdates or the availability of important features,but alsodelivering othermust-know content. For that reason, you should not miss the pieces created by subject matter experts.

Recommended Audience:

M365/O365 Developer

M365/O365 Consultant
M365/O365 Global Administrator

M365/O365 Security AdministratorM365/O365 Service AdministratorIT-Service Owner
Business- / IT-Decision Maker

Recommended Action:

Create RSS subscriptions. You can quickly consume the RSS feed within a Microsoft Teams channel as well (Using Teams RSS Connector or via Flow).

Role Guide: How can you stay ahead?

Different roles and responsibilities, different access to information sources, different point of view. In this section you find typical roles involved in the M365/O365 game.

Select to find out which options could make sense for you:

M365/O365 DEVELOPER

RECOMMENDED OPTION

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (13)

Microsoft 365 Roadmap

Office 365 Roadmap Watch

Microsoft 365 Message Center Weekly Digest Email

Service Communications API in Microsoft Graph

Microsoft 365 Service Health Hub

Microsoft 365 Message Center Planner Syncing

Microsoft Tech Community Blogs

M365/O365 Developers design, create and maintain solutions for M365/O365 workloads

M365/O365 CONSULTANT

RECOMMENDED OPTION

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (14)

Microsoft 365 Roadmap

Office 365 Roadmap Watch

365 Message Center Show

Microsoft Tech Community Blogs

Office 365 Consultants support customers or advise within the own organization

M365/O365 GLOBAL ADMINISTRATOR

RECOMMENDED OPTION

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (15)

Microsoft 365 Roadmap

Office 365 Roadmap Watch

Microsoft 365 Message Center

Microsoft 365 Message Center Weekly Digest Email

Service Communications API in Microsoft Graph

365 Message Center Show

Monthly Technical Update Briefing

Microsoft 365 Service Health Hub

Microsoft 365 Message Center Planner Syncing

Microsoft Tech Community Blogs

Global Administrators have access to administrative features in all Microsoft 365 services

M365/O365 SECURITY ADMINISTRATOR

RECOMMENDED OPTION

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (16)

Microsoft 365 Roadmap

Office 365 Roadmap Watch

Microsoft 365 Message Center

Microsoft 365 Message Center Weekly Digest Email

Service Communications API in Microsoft Graph

Monthly Technical Update Briefing

Microsoft 365 Service Health Hub

Microsoft 365 Message Center Planner Syncing

Microsoft Tech Community Blogs

Security Administrators manage security related policies and features within the organization

M365/O365 SERVICE ADMINISTRATOR

RECOMMENDED OPTION

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (17)

Microsoft 365 Roadmap

Office 365 Roadmap Watch

Microsoft 365 Message Center

Microsoft 365 Message Center Weekly Digest Email

Service Communications API in Microsoft Graph

365 Message Center Show

Monthly Technical Update Briefing

Microsoft 365 Service Health Hub

Microsoft 365 Message Center Planner Syncing

Microsoft Tech Community Blogs

Service Administrators are responsible for configuring and supporting M365/O365 workloads (e.g. SharePoint, Teams)

IT-SERVICE OWNER

RECOMMENDED OPTION

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (18)

Microsoft 365 Roadmap

Office 365 Roadmap Watch

Microsoft 365 Message Center

Microsoft 365 Message Center Weekly Digest Email

365 Message Center Show

Monthly Technical Update Briefing

Microsoft 365 Service Health Hub

Microsoft 365 Message Center Planner Syncing

Microsoft Tech Community Blogs

Service Owners are responsible for delivering certain M365/O365 workloads (e.g. SharePoint, Teams)

IT-CHANGE COORDINATOR

RECOMMENDED OPTION

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (19)

Microsoft 365 Roadmap

Office 365 Roadmap Watch

Microsoft 365 Message Center Weekly Digest Email

Monthly Technical Update Briefing

Microsoft 365 Service Health Hub

Microsoft 365 Message Center Planner Syncing

IT-Change Coordinators handle M365/O365 related changes

IT-ENTHUSIAST / POWER USER

RECOMMENDED OPTION

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (20)

Microsoft 365 Roadmap

Office 365 Roadmap Watch

365 Message Center Show

Power Users and IT Enthusiasts use advanced M365/O365 features and adopt changes early

BUSINESS- / IT-DECISION MAKER

RECOMMENDED OPTION

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (21)

Microsoft 365 Message Center Weekly Digest Email

Microsoft Tech Community Blogs

Responsible for IT related decisions at a high level in an organization or business unit

Conclusion

As you might have guessed by now, there is simply no one-fits-all solution for this topic. Different M365/O365 customers use multiple ways to deal with upcoming changes.

In our experience customers use a mixture of the options above to stay ahead of upcoming changes. Important factor to mention is not only to getting the information ahead of the update but to leverage this information proactively. Customers tend to “ignore” updates which first is not a proper way to deal with it. Furthermore, it is a bad decision because every month new features and updates will appear on top of the ignored ones within the tenant. And don’t forget, your users will use those features so staying aligned and proactive is in your organization and your users’ best interest.

Our hope is that every one of you will take action to

  • Consume the information from Microsoft Tech Community Blogss, roadmap, and Message Center etc.
  • Review the communications for business benefit and to avoid adversity with your business users
  • Drive and measure business benefits of each new feature because success begets success like nothing else

Background Information: The Microsoft 365 change guide


Microsoft published an excellent online resource that is a must read for the audience of this article.

The Microsoft 365 change guidehelps understanding the concept of rapid feature release and adoption and why it is necessary to develop and implement a robust change management strategy. The documentation is structured in chapters to provide background information as well as giving advisory for customers to implement modern IT service and change management:

Continuous change in the cloud

Introduction to the Microsoft agile development model and how customers benefit from Microsoft being committed to constantly enhance, improve, and evolve cloud services.

Read more (Continuous change in the cloud)

Controlling change: challenges and strategy

An overview of challenges customers are facing with the continuous release policy of Microsoft 365. Learn about the impact your strategy can have on evergreen IT. Three categories of customers can be identified based on their observed change strategies. Read about these common approaches and what Microsoft is advising.

Read more (Controlling change: challenges and strategy)

Service release channels and controls

Microsoft 365 customers can control the release of features they receive in two different options: “Standard Release” and “Targeted Release”. The implications of these different types are covered in the guide. Furthermore, Microsoft develops and releases new features in a ring deployment model while every ring reaches a broader audience.
Get familiar with the service release channels and how to set up the release option in the admin center.

Read more (Service release channels and controls)

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (22)

Figure taken from the Microsoft 365 change guide

Client release channels and controls

To be able to manage changes on client devices, organizations must understand the concept of client release channels. The documentation compares the differences of Microsoft 365 Apps channels (Current Channel, Monthly Enterprise Channel and Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel) and how to modify update channels for devices in your organization.

Read more (Client release channels and controls)

Change evaluation democratization

Get insights about options on update evaluation and testing and how Microsoft IT internally is dealing with this topic.

Read more (Change evaluation democratization)

Microsoft change plans, policies, and procedures

Updates are necessary to keep products and services secure, up to date, and working as expected. The M365 change guide is transparent in explaining the Microsoft 365 change management plan, disclosing details on the three phases of a change. The article explains how changes are classified and about Microsoft’s commitment to notify customers before updates are rolled out.

Read more (Microsoft change plans, policies, and procedures)

The Microsoft 365 change guide
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/deployoffice/fieldnotes/microsoft-365-change-guide

Version History

Version 1.14 (2024-02-29)

Version 1.13 (2023-10-27)

Version 1.12 (2023-05-25)

Version 1.11 (2023-04-26)

Version 1.10 (2022-11-11)

Version 1.9 (2022-10-05)

Version 1.8 (2022-09-03)

Version 1.7 (2021-10-12)

Version 1.6 (2021-08-20)

Version 1.5 (2021-02-26)

Version 1.4 (2021-01-28)

Version 1.3 (2020-11-19)

Version 1.2 (2020-04-30)

Version 1.1 (2020-03-13)

Version 1.0 (2020-03-02)

About the Authors

This content was published by Christian Heim and Christian Keller. Both work for Microsoft in Germany in their role as Cloud Solution Architects.

Disclaimer

The authors of the Office 365 Update Scout online article are a group of Microsoft Cloud Solution Architects (CSA-Es), formerly known as Customer Engineers (CEs) or Premier Field Engineers (PFEs). The Office 365 Update Scout should not be considered an official (Microsoft) product. It was created and published to help M365/O365 Administrators to stay aware of announcements, updates and upcoming features. All information provided in the Office 365 Update scout online article and offline PowerPoint document is provided "AS IS" with no warranties and confers no rights. The Office 365 Update Scout online article does not represent the thoughts, intentions, plans or strategies of Microsoft. All content is solely the opinion of the authors and provided with a best effort to be based in reality. All content, code samples, demonstrations, or anything resembling a "how-to" are provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability and/or fitness for a particular purpose.

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates (2024)

FAQs

Staying on top of Microsoft 365 / Office 365 Updates? ›

Visit the Microsoft 365 Roadmap frequently and learn about planned updates and releases. Visit Microsoft 365 Blogs, Microsoft Community, and Microsoft Tech Community to learn more details about changes in Microsoft 365 and share experiences with other users. Visit Office Blogs. Visit Microsoft Community.

How do I keep Office 365 up to date? ›

We usually recommend that you get updates automatically from the Office CDN, but you can use Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) in conjunction with Microsoft Configuration Manager to update Microsoft 365 Apps. For more information, see Manage updates to Microsoft 365 Apps with Microsoft Configuration Manager.

Does Microsoft 365 update automatically? ›

By default, updates for Microsoft 365 Apps are downloaded automatically from the internet and applied in the background, without any user or administrator intervention. You can use these update settings to change that behavior and make other changes about how Microsoft 365 Apps is updated.

How do I escape Microsoft update? ›

Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update. Double-click on Configure Automatic Updates. Select the Disabled option to turn off automatic updates. Click Apply and then OK.

Can you still use Office 365 if you don't renew? ›

When your subscription ends, your access to Microsoft 365 products and services, apps, and customer data go through multiple statuses before the subscription is fully turned off, or deleted. Being aware of this status progression can help you return your subscription to an active status before it's too late.

How do I cancel Microsoft 365 update? ›

1. As you mentioned, the first way is open an office application>File>Account>update office>to disable office update. 2. The second way is opening Settings> Update & security > Windows Update> Advanced options > Turn off the option labeled Receive updates for other Microsoft products when you update Windows.

How to keep up with Microsoft changes? ›

Visit the Microsoft 365 Roadmap frequently and learn about planned updates and releases. Visit Microsoft 365 Blogs, Microsoft Community, and Microsoft Tech Community to learn more details about changes in Microsoft 365 and share experiences with other users. Visit Office Blogs. Visit Microsoft Community.

Is Microsoft 365 update free? ›

Microsoft 365 Family or Personal

If you have a Microsoft 365 Family or Microsoft 365 Personal subscription, you already have the most current version of Office at no additional cost and should already receive the latest features to your Office apps.

What happen if Microsoft 365 expired? ›

Admins and users no longer have access to the Windows 365 service. All customer data—from user data to documents and email—is permanently deleted and is unrecoverable. At this point, you can't reactivate the subscription.

How do I opt out of Microsoft update? ›

Navigate to: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Update. 3. Double-click on "Configure Automatic Updates", and choose the "Disabled" option.

How do I stop Microsoft Update from popping up? ›

Navigate to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Update > Manage end use experience. Double-click the Display options for update notifications policy on your right. Select the Disabled option. Click Apply OK.

How do I get rid of Microsoft update? ›

If you've recently installed a Windows update and you are having a problem, here's how to uninstall the update to try to resolve the issue: Select the Start button, then select Settings > Update & Security > Windows Update > View update history > Uninstall updates.

How do I stop Microsoft 365 from installing? ›

If you have an Microsoft 365 subscription, you can sign out of Office on a PC or Mac remotely from any web browser to deactivate the installation. Because Office will sign you out of devices automatically to stay within your sign-in limit, there's no longer a need to use this process to free up installs.

Top Articles
Latest Posts
Article information

Author: Kerri Lueilwitz

Last Updated:

Views: 6162

Rating: 4.7 / 5 (67 voted)

Reviews: 90% of readers found this page helpful

Author information

Name: Kerri Lueilwitz

Birthday: 1992-10-31

Address: Suite 878 3699 Chantelle Roads, Colebury, NC 68599

Phone: +6111989609516

Job: Chief Farming Manager

Hobby: Mycology, Stone skipping, Dowsing, Whittling, Taxidermy, Sand art, Roller skating

Introduction: My name is Kerri Lueilwitz, I am a courageous, gentle, quaint, thankful, outstanding, brave, vast person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.