Microsoft 365 gets Identity Secure Score, Inking in Outlook – here’s what’s new in June

The month of June is coming to a close, meaning it is now once again time to recap what was new across Microsoft 365. It was quite busy, and Microsoft added several updates across the product lineup. The list includes Cloud App Security, Azure Active Directory, Teams, Yammer, changes to PowerPoint Designer, and more. Here’s everything that you need to know.

Branded templates in PowerPoint, Recommended Documents

Leading the list of changes in Microsoft 365 in June are several enhancements to PowerPoint, and Outlook. The first brings custom branded templates to designer in PowerPoint, which, in part, can now recommend high quality images and backgrounds that are licensed for commercial use in presentations. A second change brings support for recommended documents on all Microsoft Office desktop apps, which, as the name suggests, shows you recommended and curated lists of documents so you can jump back into your work.

Inking in Outlook, Sharing recent files in Outlook for iOS

Next up, with Inking in Outlook, you will be able to digitally ink and make notes on images and photos in your email. The feature can be found on the Draw tab in the Outlook ribbon.  Finally, there is the new ability to share recently used files in Outlook for iOS. Thanks to this feature, you can see all your Office 365 files from SharePoint and iCloud, and local storage front and center. You’ll still be able to share files via links from email from through OneDrive for Business, OneDrive, Google Drive, Box, and Dropbox cloud storage.

Cloud App Security, Azure AD Conditional Access, Identify Secure Score

Also on the list of new to Microsoft 365 in June are three new functions that all about protecting your companies data, monitoring who has access to your resources, and identities. First up, there’s Cloud App Security, which allows you to see which apps and services are running on top of all your existing cloud services subscriptions. With this new feature, you can see all transactions, IP addresses, and web traffic. Next, with Azure AD Conditional Access policies in Microsoft 365 Business, you’re in even more control of your Office 365 environment and all of its resources. Finally, with Identity Secure Score, security administrators can implement the right policies for creating the best identity security within an organization.

Other updates to Teams, Yammer, and Office 365

In June, Microsoft made some compliance changes to Teams, Yammer, and Office 365. Teams picked up a new user policy ability to restrict communications between certain groups of users with information barriers. Next up, with Yammer, users in the European Union now have a local data residency. Finally, the minimum seat requirement for Multi-Geo Capabilities in Office 365 was reduced from 2,500 seats to 500 seats.

Other miscellaneous changes for Microsoft 365 in June include the availability of Microsoft To-Do in the Mac app store, Thumbs up functionality for Microsoft Whiteboard content, Excel getting a new ability to pull NASDAQ data, and security changes to Azure AD, where passwords must now be 256 characters.