Tag: Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 Updates – June 2025

Below is a brief digest of upcoming changes in Microsoft 365 which may be of use to users within Imperial.

 

OneNote for Windows 10 App RETIREMENT – As previously notified (OneNote for Windows 10 – RETIRING October 2025 – Office 365 News and Updates) the OneNote for Windows 10 app will be retired by the end of October 2025.  If you have not yet made the change then please do ensure that you have moved across tot he OneNote for Windows app before October 2025.

 

Speaker Coach (Preview) RETIREMENT – Based on feedback and usage stats, Microsoft are retiring the speaker coach functionality from MS Teams.  The retirement will be implemented by the end of August 2025.   Microsoft are planning to introduce a new set of functionality to replace this in the autumn of 2025.

 

MS Teams – Pop out Chat, Notes and Copilot – the chat, notes and copilot (where applicable) panes within a Teams meeting can now be opened into separate windows allowing for easier collaboration while in a meeting.  To pop out the chat or notes into a separate pane, choose the relevant function then  click on the pop out button at the top of the pane.  This will be fully available by the end of July 2025.

 

MS Teams – Breakout Rooms – Meeting organisers can now set up breakout rooms but leave the attendees to choose which room they wish to join.  This provides greater choice and where Teams is being used to run parallel discussions it allows each attendee to choose the most appropriate track for their requirements.  This is available immediately (June 2025)

 

MS Teams – Large Events updates – End session for attendees only – Prior to this change, ending the event ended it for all whether presenter, organiser, co-organiser or attendee.  This change has now gone live and allows organisers and co-organisers to end the session for attendees and to then return the organiser, co organisers and presenters to the “green room” for a post event wash-up.  This works for both “Town Halls” and “Webinars” in MS Teams.  This change is active from the end of June 2025.

 

MS Teams – Large Events updates – Specify who can manage the screen (Producer role) – Organisers of Town Halls can, from the end of June 2025, specify who in the event team can “manage the screen”.  This effectively replaces the “Producer” role that was found in Live Events.  The new role in Town Halls will allow the specified user(s) to start and end the session and control what is delivered to the attendee view.

 

MS Teams – Large Events updates – Additional rights for Co-organisers – Currently co-organisers have limited remit in Town Halls and Webinars.  This change, which will complete by end of November 2025, will give Co-organisers the same controls as organisers, so the ability to edit the title, date and tioem of the event, ability to cancel the event, adding and removing additional co-organisers and presenters and the ability to grant a colleague “producer” rights (see above).

 

MS Teams – External Chats and File Sharing – Up until now it has not been possible to share a file in a 1:1 and group external chats (with a user outside the organisation).  Microsoft are introducing a new capability in Microsoft Teams that allows users to attach files when chatting with external users in 1:1 and group chats.  This enhancement improves collaboration by enabling seamless file sharing across organizational boundaries. This message applies to Teams for Windows desktop, Teams for Mac desktop, and Teams for the web.  This functionality will be available from August 2025.

 

MS Teams – Countdown Timer – Users will be able to start a visual countdown time from the “more” menu within Teams.  Times up to 100 minutes can be set, started and stopped.  The timer will be shown to all members of the meeting, but individual users can choose to turn off the visibility for themselves without affecting other users.  This feature will be available from August 2025.

 

 

Microsoft 365 Ask Me Anything (AMA) Sessions – 2025 – 26

Coming in September 2025 …

We are continuing to run these AMA sessions, on the second Tuesday at 10.00 and the fourth Tuesday at 09:00, each month.

 

How do I join the sessions?

We’ve made it simple to get signed up for these sessions / add them to your calendar this year.  For those who have already become members of the site (signed up last year), please follow the instructions from point 5 onwards.

 

For those who haven’t signed up before, please follow all the instructions below.

 

  1. Head over to The Microsoft 365 Ask Me Anything Pages at https://imperiallondon.sharepoint.com/sites/M365AMAPages
  2. On the home page, scroll down until you see the “Ask Me Anything Sessions – 2024 / 25” section.
  3. The section will display a message about the group being deleted – it hasn’t (it’s a SharePoint quirk!).  Click on the link “The Microsoft Ask Me Anything Pages” to join the membership group …
    Screenshot showing the message about the group being deleted.
    Initial “deleted group” message

    You will be automatically added to the group and see a page as follows …

    Screenshot showing successful joining of the group
    Successful joining of the group
  4. Now close the tab with the “You’ve joined this group” message and refresh the SharePoint page.  You will then see the upcoming sessions.
  5. Click on the title for a session and then in the window click on “Add event to your calendar” and choose whether you want to add the single occurrence or the series.
    Screenshot showing how to add the event to your calendar
    How to add the occurrence or series to your calendar
  6. If you add the series then you need to just go to one entry for each series (2nd Tuesday vs 4th Tuesday) and add that series.
  7. You will get an ICS file downloaded which will either be for the single date or the session depending on your choice in step 5.
  8. Open the ICS file that has downloaded and accept the invitation to add the event or series into your calendar. Repeat for the second series or for as many sessions as you wish to join individually!

 

Once you’ve done that check your calendar for the entries to the meeting including the join link for Teams.

 

We look forward to welcoming you in September 2025.

AI Tools in Microsoft 365

Teams Premium – ICT have recently deployed Teams Premium for a number of Professional Services departments supporting the University including HR, Finance, ICT and Property Services.



Teams Premium is also available for staff to request at a cost of £20 + VAT (£24 total cost) per user per year (or part thereof). You can request a Teams Premium licence by completing this Service Desk form



Teams Premium provides AI meeting notes and tasks for any meeting that is either recorded or transcribed where the organiser has a Teams Premium licence. In addition Teams Premium provides live captions and translation into multiple languages.



You can find out more about Teams Premium by watching one of the recent Teams Premium webinar recordings available from these links …

Webinar 1 – 2025 03 27 – Teams Premium for Professional Services – Webinar 1.mp4

Webinar 2 – 2025 04 29 – Teams Premium for Professional Services – Webinar 2.mp4



Copilot Chat – This is the Copilot available to all staff and students via the web browser. This is a Generative AI tool which allows you to ask questions and which surfaces answers and creates content based on publicly available content from websites, etc.



The tool allows creation of a limited number of images (this is a recent change made by Microsoft at the end of April 2025) using the Dall-e models. ICT are aware of the limit being as low as 1 image per 24 hours and have expressed concern to Microsoft about the usability of such a low limit given that image generation almost always requires some refinement which the limits currently prevent.



Copilot for M365 – this is the full integration of Copilot into M365 apps such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Teams. Copilot for M365 also integrates with the files that you have access to, whether in your One Drive or via files stored in SharePoint sites where you have access.



Copilot for M365 apps can generate more specific content or assist you by analysing data or summarising long emails or documents.



Copilot for M365 is a high cost add-on so should be carefully considered before making any request. The current cost for Copilot (as at May 2025) is £342 + VAT (£410) per user per year. ICT are working to try and reduce this cost and we hope to have better pricing from July 2025.



If you are interested in obtaining Copilot for M365 licences then please contact the Service Desk who can log a request to the relevant team for further discussion, etc.



On Tuesday 13 May 2025 we ran an AMA session where the bulk of the time was spent demonstrating some of the Copilot for M365 features. A recording is available at 13 05 2025 – Microsoft AMA Session – Demos of Copilot for M365.mp4

OneNote for Windows 10 – RETIRING October 2025

On 14 October 2025, Microsoft will retire the OneNote for Windows 10 app.

From this date you will NOT be able to use the OneNote for Windows 10 app and you must use the OneNote app included with Office 365 installs, or downloaded direct from Microsoft via https://www.onenote.com/Download

 

Why is this happening?

Enhanced Security – the desktop app for OneNote supports a number of improved security functions including the ability to use sensitivity labels. Whilst this is not currently in use in Imperial, it might be utilised in the future.

New Features and AI power – The OneNote desktop app has a development cycle which will continue Microsoft’s investment in feature and AI development.

Improved Performance and Support – the OneNote for Windows 10 app no longer receives security or feature updates. This can lead to potential performance and security issues. As such we strongly recommend that you update to using the OneNote desktop app and cease using the OneNote for Windows 10 app AS SOON AS POSSIBLE.

Faster Sync and Collaboration – From June 2025, Microsoft have announced that the OneNote for Windows 10 app will have much slower sync and collaboration capabilities when compared with the OneNote desktop app.

Uninterrupted Experience – Users of the OneNote for Windows 10 app will, from July 2025, see banner notifications about the forthcoming retirement. These notifications may interrupt your workflows, so plan ahead and make the move to OneNote desktop NOW.

 

How do I move to the OneNote desktop app?

Ensure that you have the app installed. Follow the download link (https://www.onenote.com/Download) or go to the Start button, click to see all apps and look for OneNote and NOT the “OneNote for Windows 10” in the start menu.

Open your notebook online from https://portal.office.com (log in with your username@ic.ac.uk). The choose to edit in OneNote and when prompted open the OneNote app and note the one for Windows 10.

 

I need help.

Contact the Imperial ICT Service Desk via this link (https://www.imperial.ac.uk/admin-services/ict/contact-ict-service-desk/), detailing your issue and requesting assistance in moving away from OneNote for Windows 10.

Attend an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session as detailed at Microsoft 365 Ask Me Anything sessions – 2024 / 25 – Office 365 News and Updates.

Microsoft 365 Ask Me Anything sessions – 2024 / 25

We’re back for the 2024 / 25 Academic Year!

Based on feedback at the end of the last series we are continuing to run these, on the second Tuesday at 10.00 and the fourth Tuesday at 09:00, each month.

How do I join the sessions?

We’re making it simpler to get signed up for these sessions / add them to your calendar this year.  For those who have already become members of the site (signed up last year), we have sent the invitations to you directly.

 

For those who haven’t signed up before, please follow the instructions below.

 

  1. Head over to The Microsoft 365 Ask Me Anything Pages at https://imperiallondon.sharepoint.com/sites/M365AMAPages
  2. On the home page, scroll down until you see the “Ask Me Anything Sessions – 2024 / 25” section.
  3. The section will display a message about the group being deleted – it hasn’t (it’s a SharePoint quirk!).  Click on the link “The Microsoft Ask Me Anything Pages” to join the membership group …
    Screenshot showing the message about the group being deleted.
    Initial “deleted group” message

    You will be automatically added to the group and see a page as follows …

    Screenshot showing successful joining of the group
    Successful joining of the group
  4. Now close the tab with the “You’ve joined this group” message and refresh the SharePoint page.  You will then see the upcoming sessions.
  5. Click on the title for a session and then in the window click on “Add event to your calendar” and choose whether you want to add the single occurrence or the series.
    Screenshot showing how to add the event to your calendar
    How to add the occurrence or series to your calendar
  6. If you add the series then you need to just go to one entry for each series (2nd Tuesday vs 4th Tuesday) and add that series.
  7. You will get an ICS file downloaded which will either be for the single date or the session depending on your choice in step 3.
  8. Open the ICS file that has downloaded and accept the invitation to add the event or series into your calendar. Repeat for the second series or for as many sessions as you wish to join individually!

 

Once you’ve done that check your calendar for the entries to the meeting including the join link for Teams.

 

We look forward to welcoming you in October 2024.

Pronouns in Microsoft 365

The new Pronouns feature has arrived for Teams and will be rolling out across contact cards in Microsoft 365 more widely in the coming months.

Using the Pronouns option allows you to easily add your preferred set of Pronouns, either from the suggested set, or by creating your own.

Adding Pronouns is easy to achieve by following these few steps …

1. Click on your profile picture / initials in MS Teams

2. Click on your name to go into the profile “card” where more information about you is available.

3. Underneath your display name there is a “+Pronouns” button (or your chosen pronouns if you have already done this at least once.

 

Screenshot showing how to get to the pronouns feature on your M365 digital contact card
Where to find the pronouns feature


4. Click on the Pronouns button and choose the prnouns that you wish to add.

 

Screenshot showing how to set the pronouns of your choosing
Pronoun setting page



5. Click Save to complete the update of your Pronouns.

SharePoint – Essentials

The Microsoft 365 suite contains many powerful tools and services.  SharePoint is the most fundamental in delivering storage to support almost all these services.

SharePoint can, however, be confusing so in this blog post we’ll aim to try and clear up some of the confusion.

If you take only one thing from reading this post it should be this …

    • One Drive for Business is for Personal file storage.
    • SharePoint is for group files.
    • SharePoint is for much more than just storing group files.

So let’s dig into this a bit more …

 

1. Fundamentals.

SharePoint is NOT just another file share (or the place where your group files are going to be moved to)!  SharePoint contains many useful elements and for some it is the versatile swiss army knife of collaboration.

A SharePoint site can not only deliver file storage so that you and your work group, department or faculty can work together on files.  It can also deliver pages of information, news, and act as a landing page for your team where they can discover what’s happening and see updated information.

For this to work, you are going to need to understand some other concepts and have people who are prepared to manage and update the site and pages.

 

2. OneDrive for Business vs SharePoint.

 

As already stated, OneDrive for Business (ODfB) is for personal file storage.  ODfB is NOT for long term sharing or storage of group files.

You can see our One Drive for Business Basics blog here.

SharePoint is the place for Group files and group working.

 

3. What’s a Site, a Page, a Document Library and a Web Part?

 

SharePoint Site – is the collection of pages, documents and information delivered as a managed area where you can set specific access rights for a group of users.

Page – is a webpage in the SharePoint site.  You can deliver information and dynamic access using “web parts”.  A web part is a function which can help you to show information such as a time in a different location, weather or a collection of files or other useful elements.

Document Library – this is a storage space where you can group files and then grant access to a group of people to the whole library.  So for example you might want to include different sets of useful information or files into a discreet document library – e.g. finance files in a separate document library from HR files or work instructions, or maybe you want a more easily accessible video library of meeting recordings or training videos.

Web Part – this is a small piece of pre-written code that is built to work on a SharePoint page to allow you to deliver some specific information.

 

4. Security in SharePoint

 

When a SharePoint site is created it comes with three default groups – the Owners, Members and Visitors groups.

Owners – these are the people responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of the site.  They have the ability to add people to the other groups (Members and Visitors), create new groups and add people to those groups, change the access controls and generally have a large range of controls.

Members – these are the regular collaborating users in the group / department / faculty.  They generally have edit access to the site so can potentially add and update new pages, add, edit and delete files from document libraries and see what is in the site.

Visitors – the people added to the visitors group usually have “read only” permission – so they can read pages of information and view files within the document library, but they can’t edit the files.

So the default permissions are …

Site Owners = Full Control
Site Members = Edit
Site Visitors = Read

It is possible to change the access for a page or a file so that a restricted set of people have access, or to grant additional people access to a resource within the SharePoint site.

The other permissions that can commonly be granted to users or groups of users are as follows:

Full Control – Has full control
Design – Can view, add, update, delete, approve, and customize
Edit – Can add, edit and delete lists; can view, add, update and delete list items and documents
Contribute – Can view, add, update, and delete list items and documents
Read – Can view pages and list items and download documents
View – Can view pages, list items, and documents but not download

NOTE the difference between Read and View – a user with view access cannot download a document but someone with Read access can!

 

5. Metadata

 

Metadata is a means of filtering or refining a data set.  So in SharePoint that might be a list of recordings, but with metadata you can filter based on the subject covered, etc.  In the exaple shown below we have added a column to contain metadata about the subjects covered in some videos.

 

Image of a SharePoint library showing metadata

 

6. Syncing

 

The simple rule here is … DON’T Sync SharePoint libraries.

SharePoint document libraries are generally VERY large.  When you sync a document library (or add a shortcut to OneDrive for Business) then the library or shortcut linked area get synced using the OneDrive for Business sync client.

If you have a whole department’s or research group’s files in a SharePoint document library then you also run the risk of accidental deletion and potentially then not being able to recover files.

As an example, after syncing just 35,000 files from a library containing 230,000 files,  it took over 2 hours to “un-sync” the library!  That’s on a VERY fast (1.2Gbps) fibre optic internet connection with zero contention.

Microsoft’sown documentation has limits and guidance on the total number of files that you should sync across One Drive for Business and synced SharePoint libraries (your “sync set”).  Many SharePoint libraries would breach this recommendation in their own right, let alone as part of a larger “sync set”.

Imperial ICT do NOT recommend syncing of SharePoint document libraries and in fact on many SharePoint sites the functionality is disabled to prevent offline file storage (synced files).

 

One Drive for Business – Basics

One Drive for Business (ODfB) is the personal storage area assigned to each user as part of their Office 365 license.

One Drive for Business is delivered as a “personal SharePoint site”.  You get all the great SharePoint features such as collaboration and co-authoring if you choose to share a file (see below for some guidance), but it is a personal site.

If you look at the address for your One Drive for Business, you’ll see that it has “-my” after the tenant name but that it sits on SharePoint, and the address also contains your User Principle Name (but with the @ and . characters replaced with _).

Quota

Within Imperial College London, every user gets an initial quota of 5 Terra Bytes (5TB) of storage space.  If you manage to fill that (and there’s no competition to try!), then we can extend your quota further should you need it.  We can only do that once your One Drive for Business is consistently using more than 90% (4.5TB) of the quota.

OK – so how much is 5TB really?

85,000 CD quality MP3 tracks – roughly equivalent to 1,000,000 hours of listening, which is about 114 years of back to back listening.

or

1.5 million photos

or

2,500 DVD quality movies

 

File Versioning

OneDrive for Business and SharePoint both support automatic file versioning.  So you don’t have to add version numbers onto documents any more, nor do you have to remember where you are up to.

When you open a file from your ODfB the default is to open the current version.

You can see all the versions of a file by clicking on the vertical dots to the right of the file name (when you hover over the file in the browser) and then choosing Version History.

Screenshot showing how to find version history for a file on OneDrive for Business

Screenshot showing how to access version history.

Once you have the version history open you can choose to delete a version or restore an earlier version.  Alternatively you can open a version so that you can compare it against the current version.
Note – you can only Open the current version (you can’t restore it because it is the most up to date version and you can’t delete the current version).

Screenshot showing version history for a file

Screenshot showing version history for a file.

Screenshot showing options for a file version

Screenshot showing actions that can be carried out on a version of a file.

Recycle Bin

You can delete a file or version of a file and then restore it for yourself.

This works for 90 days, after which you will need to ask ICT for assistance, up to 180 days.

If you deleted it more than 180 days ago, then it’s gone for good.

Use the Recycle Bin link in the navigation bar on the left side of your ODfB to see the files and folders that you deleted.

Screenshot of recycle bin

How to access the Recycle Bin in One Drive for Business.

Select a file or version of a file to then be able to restore the file.

Screenshot showing how to restore a file or file version from the recycle bin

Screenshot showing how to restore a file or file version from the recycle bin

 

Sharing

Do NOT share files with large numbers of people or for long term sharing.  Use a SharePoint site for long term group access or sharing.

Sharing from your One Drive for Business is designed for short-term, small-scale collaboration.  It is NOT designed for you to deliver long term access or to run a group or department file share.

N.B. If you have shared files and are leaving College then you need to give those files to someone else – when you leave College your license to access Microsoft 365 will be revoked and your personal One Drive for Business data will be deleted automatically.

Imperial College London do NOT allow “anyone” sharing.  Anonymous links are dangerous and can lead to serious GDPR data breaches.

 

Screenshot showing how to start sharing wizard

Screenshot showing how to start sharing wizard

 

The sharing controls

The sharing controls

 

Advanced sharing controls

Advanced sharing controls

You can share directly with people, either by selecting them from the internal directory, or with external people by entering their email address or institution UPN.

Screenshot showing how to add people to sharing

Screenshot showing how to add people to sharing

When you choose to share you can control what level of access is provided (Edit, Review or Read).

Sharing access levels

Sharing access levels

 

Sharing access levels - main sharing dialogue box

Sharing access levels

 

You can also see what you have shared by using the Shared link in the left navigation bar in ODfB.  You can then choose between the files that have been “Shared with you” (i.e. shared by others for you to read, review or edit) or “Shared by you” (your files which you have shared).

Screenshot showing shared files

Screenshot showing shared files

 

You can control the access at any time.  Select the file or folder and then click on the menu and choose “manage access”.  You can stop all access by clicking on the “Stop sharing” option at the top, or you can change the access for individuals who no longer need access.

 

Access to manage access

Access to manage access

 

Managing access

Managing access

 

What’s a UPN?

Your UPN is your User Principle Name.  At imperial we use username followed by the domain (which means it is different from our primary email address).  Other institutions may well also have a UPN which is different to the primary email address.

If you are sharing with others then ask them if they have a Microsoft 365 UPN (i.e. do they login with something other than their primary email address).

UPNs are also used when adding people to Microsoft 365 groups to ensure that the user is correctly authenticated and access is granted appropriately.

If you are being added to a group (Team or email group) at another institution, make sure that you have given them your UPN for seamless access.

Office 365 Ask Me Anything (Well Almost) – 2022 / 23

What?

We’re pleased to announce our new season of Office 365 Ask Me Anything sessions for the Academic Year 2022 / 23.

When?

These will start on Tuesday 13 September 2022 at 10am and then be held on 2nd Tuesday of the month at 10am and on the 4th Tuesday of the month at 9am.

We’re varying the times a little as we know it’s not always convenient to make a 9am or a 10am slot.

We also know there are some clashes so we’ll try to move things for obvious clashes of date.

Where?

Online using Microsoft Teams

Who?

These sessions are open to all staff to join, listen, watch and ask questions about components of Office 365.

More Info

Whether you want to know about Teams Meetings or Webinars, new functionality being introduced or how to do something clever in Power Automate come along and find out more.

Some sessions will have a particular focus while others will be completely open.

How?

Sign up by completing the online form.  We’ll then add you to the sessions.

 

Group your Microsoft Forms

Lots of Microsoft Forms?  Struggling to find the right one(s)?

 

You can now group your forms into Collections to make it easy to find forms or keep similar forms together.

 

How do I do that?

  1. Go to forms in Office 365 (https://forms.microsoft.com).
  2. Scroll down and click on the All forms link to the bottom right of the screen …
  3. In the top right click on the “New Collection” link …Screenshot showing the "new collection" link in Forms.
  4. Name your collection
  5. To assign a form to a collection click on the three dots on the form and choose “move to collection” and then the collection that you wish to usescreenshot showing move to collection in Microsoft Forms
  6. Once you have added forms to a collection you will see your collection in the forms pages and can drill into a collection to use the forms like normal.  You can also create new forms in a collection directly.Screenshot of a forms collection