Microsoft 365 Release Roundup: January – March 2023 

Introduction 

If you’re a Microsoft 365 for Business subscriber, you’ll know just how quickly the Microsoft team update the (many) apps each plan offers. 

The updates come so quickly, in fact, that it’s very easy to entirely miss a handy feature which might safe you and your business time. 

But fear not: the Get Support team has compiled all of the biggest and most valuable feature updates across the Microsoft 365 suite of products for January to March 2023 and listed them all here.  

Microsoft Teams 

Get your whole team’s attention on iOS and Android 

Eager to make yourself heard in a group chat? Microsoft has solved that one for Teams on iOS. 

Just use the @everyone tag in a group chat and Teams will send a notification to everyone in the same way it would if you’d mentioned each person individually. This can be especially handy when you need to share an urgent message or important announcement with the entire group and don’t want anyone to miss it. 

Delete chats from your chat history on iOS 

A feature that’s already available on the desktop and web version of Microsoft Teams, users are now able to delete any chat from their list in Teams.  

To do that on iOS, just swipe left on the chat you want rid of and choose More > Delete. Be warned though: the chat will only be removed from your list – not the other participants’.   

Enhanced webinar management 

The Microsoft Teams webinar template has been upgraded with a host of expanded options to help customise registration details and event settings. 

The new management experience will assist you in configuring webinars with features like: 

• The ability to designate co-organisers – so you don’t have to do it all yourself. 
• Registration capacity limits for up to 1000 attendees. 
• Adding custom questions for attendees prior to the webinar. 
• Attendee status and reporting details, including the ability to see who signed up for the webinar but didn’t attend. 
• The ability to highlight speaker bios and showcase company branding with logos and colour schemes. 

Integration with Meta Workplace Live 

If you haven’t heard of “Meta Workplace”, you’re not alone. It’s actually Meta (formerly Facebook)’s version of a digital workspace, a bit like Teams.   

The “Workplace Live” app can now be added directly to Teams, allowing attendees to watch events in their workplace group either live as-they-happen, or as recordings later on.  

To use this newly integrated feature, add the Workplace Live app to your Teams meeting or webinar, then log in with your Workplace account, and choose the Workplace event you want to stream live. 

Microsoft Excel 

Automatic recalculation for better performance 

Back in 2013, Excel introduced a behind-the-scenes features called the single document interface, or SDI. This allowed users to open multiple workbooks in Excel at once, meaning they didn’t have to have multiple instances running on their machine at the same time. 

However, using Excel’s Automatic Calculation mode – which dynamically updates values by carrying our calculations in real time – could cause all open workbooks to recalculate, rather than just one.  

To address this, Microsoft has now limited the recalculation process so that it only applies to the active workbook – as well as any which have data linked to or from it. This change will boost performance and minimise any noticeable slowdowns.  

It’s worth noting that any workbooks using real-time streaming of any sort won’t be affected by this update.  

Microsoft PowerPoint 

Automatic bullet formatting in PowerPoint for the web 

Bullet-pointed lists are a common sight in Microsoft PowerPoint, but they’ve historically been quite a manual process. You’d have to go to the relevant section of the ribbon, pick the bullet style you want, then apply it to your slide.  

But not anymore. 

With automatic bullet formatting, you can now use a keystroke followed by the Enter key to automatically add specific bullets. For example, a classic bullet point will be added via the asterisk (*) and an arrow bullet would be the ‘greater than’ key (>). You can see the full list of available bullets on Microsoft’s website.  

Microsoft Word 

@tagging is now available in Word 

If you’ve often worked on Microsoft Words docs with fellow collaborators in the past, you may have noticed that @tagging just didn’t work in comments. This often meant that changes needed to be communicated outside of Word, usually via Teams or some other messaging tool. 

To streamline this experience, Microsoft has now added @tagging to Microsoft Word comments, meaning you can just press the @key, start typing a colleague’s name, and they’ll receive a notification and be able to act on it right away – no faff.  

If you’re not already a Microsoft 365 subscriber, we recommend contacting your Get Support account manager for additional information. You can also find more information about the advantages and capabilities of Microsoft 365 here.