Major SharePoint features quietly announced, and upcoming events!

ROADMAP
Updating all News Posts to "Made for Email

Following the positive reception of the "Made for Email" News templates, we are rolling out a change that will make every news post you create "Made for Email" by default. Now, no matter how you create your new News Post, whether it is copying a previous post or using an existing template, you will have access to send that full distribution as an email. With this change, authors will still have access to our full webpart library by selecting "all" webparts in the webpart picker but are defaulted into having additional sending functionality. Link to roadmap

Enhancements to the Text web part

New features coming to the Text web part include enhancements to styling/formatting, bullets/numbered lists, and tables. It’s odd that we’ve had a text web part that didn’t have these features already, but it’s a good sign that this has been added. Hopefully it’s the first of many additions to the text web part, enabling richer content for your intranet. Link to roadmap

Multi-tenant organization capabilities now available in Microsoft 365

Enhancements have been made to multi-tenant orgs. This allows for better visibility in Microsoft 365 People Search, Microsoft Teams, Viva Engage, and more. There are a few other roadmap additions for other products as well, so Microsoft seems to be making a lot of quality-of-life additions at once around multi-tenant scenarios. Link to news

Pages - Author inline comments

The roadmap item states “Author inline comments enables users to collaborate, provide feedback, and track issues within a page or news post.” This seems a bit vague, doesn’t it? It’ll be interesting to see what level of collaboration we’ll get. This rollout will begin in December 2024, so if that much lead time is given, it often indicates this is a major feature. Link to roadmap

Pages - SharePoint: Flexible Layouts

New flexible layout sections allow authors to build pages without the strict column structure. Web parts can be dynamically resized and moved within the flexible section. I’ve seen this in action, and this is a MAJOR FEATURE. I expect this to bring about the next evolution in SharePoint page design. This won’t be here for a while, though, with a preview starting in December 2024. Link to roadmap

Pages - Updated Hero web part with new layout & styles

This has been long overdue in my opinion. We’ve needed a better hero web part. The reimagined hero web part will feature a carousel layout and a selection of new styles, creating an eye-catching and engaging experience at the top of the page. This is set to arrive in December 2024 as well, meaning we’ll have a TON of amazing features to play around with at the end of the year. Link to roadmap

Pages - Image shapes

This feature will be in preview next month, with a rollout starting in June! You’ll be able to apply a shape over the image web part as well as on inline images in the text web part. Shapes include square, circle, triangle, hexagon, pebble, and teardrop. I’ve seen this in action as well. It’ll pair very well with flexible layouts and allow for very cool designs. Link to roadmap

CONTENT
Update - SharePoint List and Library formatting with JSON

I’ve just updated my premiere online course with new lessons, including a new tool to make JSON formatting incredibly easy. All students get lifetime access to future updates, so if you’re enrolled, check back in! If you’d like to learn more about the course, I’ve got all the info as well as the course curriculum listed. Click here to learn more

I’ve got other courses and digital products available on that site as well, but if there’s something you’d like to see in the future, let me know!

EVENTS
SharePoint Intranet Festival

There’s a brand new event starting up! This will be a virtual event lasting only one day, and will have both Microsoft as well as 3rd party presenters. Here’s the link to learn more about the event, as well as the registration link. Click here to learn more

SharePoint content at the Microsoft 365 Community Conference

The session list for SharePoint-related content has been released for the M365 Conference, beginning this week. There’s some great sessions on SharePoint Premium and other products. It’s possible that we’ll get some major announcements, although I’m hoping they’ll show everyone the flexible page layouts feature. That’ll generate a lot of hype! I’ll keep my eyes out for any announcements and let you know right here, though. Click here to learn more

VIDEOS
The Ultimate Guide to SharePoint Embedded

BLOG
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STORIES
Why can’t I create a new developer tenant using the M365 Developer Program?

Microsoft has placed a hold on all requests to create a new developer tenant using the M365 developer program. As you’d imagine, when you give away something for free, there’ll be bad actors that abuse the privilege. That’s happened here, and while Microsoft determines how to prevent that misuse, they’ve had to pause that ability. You’ve got a couple of options, though:

• If you’ve got a Visual Studio subscription, you can still create a developer tenant, since that’s part of your benefits

• You can create a single-user (commercial) tenant pretty cheap (although it’s not free)

The timing for reenabling the free developer program tenants has not been announced yet, but I’m hoping it won’t be much longer.