1. How to keep up with changes in Office 365
Juan Carlos González
Office Servers & Services MVP | Cloud & Productivity Advisor

2. Juan Carlos González Grupo Zertia Contact Details
Office Servers & Services MVP | Cloud & Productivity Advisor
SUGES, Comunidad de O365 & Nuberos.NET Coordinator
CompartiMOSS Co-Director (
Some other places where you can find me:
Personal Blog:
Microsoft Tech Community:
Contact Details
Twitter : jcgm1978 Facebook : LinkedIn :

3. Agenda Q & A Changes in Office 365 & Release Options
Microsoft Change Management Toolbox
Q & A
Other Change Management Tools & Resources
Tips, Best Practices & Roadmap

4. 350+ Changes in Office 365 Innovative new services and applications
New features
(7/ /2016)
Changes in Office 365
Innovative new services and applications
Evolution of features and functionality
Enhancements to performance and security
Compatibility and deprecations

5. Release Options in Office 365
350+
New features
(7/ /2016)
FIRST RELEASE - Test Tenant
You and your users can be the first to see the latest updates and help shape the product by providing early feedback.
It is an Opt-In experience.
STANDARD RELEASE
Default option: You and your users receive the latest updates when they're released broadly to all Office 365 customers.
It gives you extra time to prepare your support staff and users for upcoming changes.
FIRST RELEASE SELECT PEOPLE - IT Pros in Production
It allows organizations to define specific users to receive early access to features and functionality.
It is an Opt-In experience.

6. Validations rings in Office 365
At each ring, quality and key usage metrics are validated
User feedback is also incorporated to the product
New features
(7/ /2016)
WORLDWIDE
RING 0
RING 1
RING 2
RING 3
RING 4
FEATURE
TEAMS
OFFICE 365 TEAM
MICROSOFT
FIRST RELEASE
Progression through these rings represents progressive validation giving teams confidence to release WW

7. DEMO: Release Options in Office 365

8. Office 365 Change Management Toolkit
350+
New features
(7/ /2016)
Message Center
Microsoft Tech Community
Office 365 Roadmap
Plan ahead with the Office 365 Message Center. Keep current from anywhere using the Admin Mobile App
Learn about / Discover changes from peers in the Microsoft Tech Community
techcommunity.microsoft.com
See what’s coming in the Office 365 Roadmap: upcoming features and releases
roadmap.office.com

9. Office 365 Change Management Toolkit
350+
New features
(7/ /2016)
Office Blog
Office Blog: Learn about Office 365 announcements and news
blogs.office.com
Other Microsoft / Community Tools: Channel 9, YouTube, Blogs, TechNet Wiki Articles, Office 365 Support articles, Docs.com documentation, Slideshare, …

10. Office 365 Message Center – Stay on top of Changes
350+
New features
(7/ /2016)
Jump into specific change announcements without leaving home screen 1
Navigate to message center to see all messages 2

11. Office 365 Message Center – Stay on top of Changes
350+
New features
(7/ /2016)
Communication Details
Tenant Specific Communications
Most authoritative source of what's coming for a tenant: the items that appear there are filtered for the tenant and are close to appearance.

12. Office 365 Messages Center
350+
New features
(7/ /2016)
WHY SHOULD I USE MESSAGE CENTER?
Most authoritative source of what’s coming for a tenant
Configure message center preferences
In-product notification of important changes and new features coming to Office 365
It provides Tenant specific communications
Provides details on changes and highlights required admin actions
Each message belongs to a specific category
Target Audience: Administrators, IT Communications Teams, Help Desk
Continuously evolving and adding new features: Message center weekly digest,
translate messages into your local
language
Message Categories: Stay informed, Plan for change, Prevent or fix issues
Most authorititive source of what's coming for a tenant: the items that appear there are filtered for the tenant and are close to appearance.
Continuously evolving and adding new features: translate messages into your local language, Message center weekly digest , integrated into the Office 365 Admin Portal Home page, etc

13. DEMO: Office 365 Messages Center

14. Message Center – Translate Messages
Translate Message Center content to your native language.

15. Message Center Preferences
350+
New features
(7/ /2016)
Make it relevant to you
Weekly Digest Configuration

16. Office 365 Message Center Weekly Digest
350+
Review Message Center communications via
Easy to share with other interested parties without granting access to the Admin Center

17. DEMO: Send weekly message center e-mail to Microsoft Teams

18. 350+ Office 365 Admin App New features FEATURES AT A GLANCE
(7/ /2016)
Message center in your pocket
Push notifications available for the message center
Ability to apply keywords filters so you can search for specific messages
You can configure different admin accounts, so you can sign in different tenants from your device
FEATURES AT A GLANCE

19. DEMO: Office 365 Admin App

20. Microsoft Tech Community
techcommunity.microsoft.com

21. Microsoft Tech Community
350+
New features
(7/ /2016)
One Microsoft community for IT Pros and tech enthusiasts to learn from experts on Microsoft products
Trusted resource for news, best practices and answers from Microsoft product teams and MVPs
It’s free – You can sign in with your Microsoft Account

22. 350+ Office 365 Roadmap New features Good as heads-up mechanism
(7/ /2016)
Good as heads-up mechanism
Roadmap items are grouped into 5 main categories
Narrow search of roadmap items by applying different filters
Also possible to search typing keywords
And of course, it also evolves : download Office 365 Roadmap feature!
Roadmap categories: Launched, Rolling Out, In development, Cancelled, Previously Released
The roadmap is good as a heads-up mechanism, but suffers because some things are on the roadmap for months (even years, it might seem) without appearing. Recovery of deleted groups is an example - this received major attention at the Ignite conference in September 2016 and now, six months later, we still wait.

23. 350+ Office Blogs New features
(7/ /2016)
Sometimes it’s more a Marketing Tool than a “trusted” information source about O365 changes
Features announced could differ in functionality when they are finally released
Blogs do not normally contain timing information about when the new stuff will arrive to your tenant
First, it's a marketing forum. It can take months afterwards for something described to appear in the service and when it does, the functionality might differ (because it has been tested and changed in First Release).
Second, there's no filtering on blogs.office.com to break down functionality for a specific tenant. You have to know what plans you have and then interpret the content to understand whether you will get the described functionality

24. Office 365 Update Series – Channel 9
Monthly Digest about new Office 365 stuff released by Microsoft month by month
Each Digest is just a 10 minutes video

25. Weekly Digest Post by Thomas C. Finney

26. Office 365 Communications API
Service Communications API
API Provides:
Health information for all Office 365 services
Real time health status
Historical health status
Message Center communications
WHO’S THE TARGET AUDIENCE?
ISVs and reseller partners
In-house development teams
AOBO Partners, IT pros, and CTOs

27. Office 365 Communications API
Why should I use this API?
Simplify Office 365 monitoring and improve visibility:
Real time and historical service status
Communications for service incidents, planned maintenance, and message center
Extend the ecosystem around service communication:
Create applications and integrate with service management panels
Part of the Office 365 Management APIs

28. DEMO: Custom Office 365 Change Management Tools

29. Other Community / Microsoft Resources
Paul Cunningham’s Office 365 Digest Message:
Office 365 Support Articles:
Example: Use the List web part on a modern page
Change Alerts Space at the Microsoft Tech Community:

30. Other Community / Microsoft Resources
Cian Allner’s Wiki Article:
Office 365 Update Series by Jim Naroski:

31. Tips & Best Practices Set up a trial tenant and enable First Release
Configure admin accounts in Production for First Release Select People
Download the Office 365 Admin App

32. Roadmap Actionable Preview Period:
Will my users love this?
Roadmap
First Release
Actionable Preview Period:
All “major” changes will flight to First Release SP for an enforced time period before GA
Microsoft will announce “major” changes ahead of when the preview period begins
IT Pros & users in FR SP will be notified when preview period starts
The length of preview period will vary based on planned impact of change
Announced at Ignite Initially available for EXO
SP = Select People

33. Juan Carlos González Grupo Zertia Contact Details
Office Servers & Services MVP | Cloud & Productivity Advisor
SUGES, Comunidad de O365 & Nuberos.NET Coordinator
CompartiMOSS Co-Director (
Some other places where you can find me:
Personal Blog:
Microsoft Tech Community:
Contact Details
Twitter : jcgm1978 Facebook : LinkedIn :