November 2023 Round Up

Hey there, Lui here, and I'm excited to bring you the November 2023 edition of my Round Up newsletter. This edition is brimming with highlights from my latest content, handpicked news, valuable tips and tricks, and more. Over the past month, there have been some significant Microsoft announcements (any takers for AI?), feature releases (SharePoint News For Email!), and exciting product launches.

I've also been diligently working on publishing new, helpful Microsoft-related content. You'll find a selection of that content below, but don't forget to visit my YouTube channel and hit that subscribe button for real-time updates on my latest tutorials. Additionally, I've got a top-notch tip of the month, all centered around Microsoft Outlook!

I trust you'll find this edition both informative and practical. As always, if you stumble upon something useful or have suggestions for future newsletters or even a tutorial idea, simply hit reply and share your thoughts with me. Your feedback is highly appreciated.

Thanks for reading,

Lui Iacobellis

In this edition...

Integrating the Microsoft Milestones app with Microsoft Planner
SharePoint News for Email new feature alert
Create a new Microsoft Planner Task Every Time a Microsoft Form is Submitted (for real)
Tip of the Month: Set work location in MS Outlook
News: Microsoft Copilot Launch (it's here with a catch!)
News: Microsoft Teams Channel experience is changing (again unfortunately!)
Tool of the month: Plumsail For SharePoint

New Content

Integrating the Microsoft Milestones App with Microsoft Planner

Did you know that Microsoft Teams has a free lightweight project management app that you can use to track and organize projects directly within Teams? This app is called the Microsoft Milestones app and it was created by Microsoft using Microsoft Power Apps (you can learn how to use this app here). In my experience, using this app, it does provide a nice visual dashboard for your project (which is what really makes it useful) however, it doesn't provide notifications out-of-the-box which is rather limiting. So, I did some research and found a way to integrate this app with Microsoft Planner so that when a new work item (the name that the app uses for tasks) is created, it will automatically create a task in an MS Planner board of your choice.

How To Integrate The Microsoft Milestones App with Microsoft Planner

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New Feature: SharePoint News For Email

Microsoft just released a handy new feature called SharePoint news for email that allows you to create posts in the News web part that can be automatically sent via email. What's really cool about this feature is that the news posts will automatically be optimized for distribution via email so that the post renders nicely on any device. My favorite part about this feature is that views of the news post from email will also be displayed in the post analytics (FINALLY!). This is the closest thing that I've seen to an email marketing app for Enterprises and will surely make organizational change management efforts a lot easier.

How To Use SharePoint News For Email

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Power Automate Workflow To Create MS Planner Tasks From Microsoft Form Responses

Have you ever had a requirement to create an intake form for something such as a business process, new employee suggestion, project proposal? If so, you might have considered using Microsoft Forms to collect the information. However, MS Forms doesn't really provide a good way to view, access and manage this type of data that might need to be progressed through a workflow or may need further action. Well that is where this Microsoft Power Automate workflow might come in handy. In this tutorial, I demonstrate how you can move the data from MS Form responses into a Microsoft Planner task board of your choice and I even demonstrate how to post the details in the channel of a team as a message.

How To Create a New MS Planner Task Every Time A Microsoft Form Is Submitted

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Tip Of The Month: Set Your Work Location In Microsoft Outlook

Microsoft recently released a new version of the Microsoft Outlook desktop app. It is a faster more modern app which also brings forward some new features and capabilities not available in the old version of Microsoft Outlook. One of those features is pretty useful in the context of hybrid work environments. This feature allows you to set your physical work location (i.e. whether you will be working in the office or remotely per day) and will expose this info to your colleagues when they use the scheduling assistant to schedule meetings with you. Say goodbye to answering the dreaded "Are you in the office today" question! Learn how to use this feature in 36 seconds below!

News: Microsoft's AI-Based Chatbot Copilot Now Generally Available

Microsoft just released its AI-Based based chatbot "Copilot". Copilot can be used directly from within various Microsoft 365 apps such as Microsoft Teams, Outlook, PowerPoint and more. Microsoft is marketing Copilot as the enterprise productivity service that will revolutionize the way organizations work and based on the demo videos Microsoft has published, it does look promising. For example, you can leverage Copilot to create PowerPoint presentations and speaking notes by entering a few simple prompts and providing some context. Similarly, you can leverage Copilot to prepare for a meeting by asking it to review emails, chats and files shared with or by meeting participants and it will draft a summary for you to review. While the Copilot capabilities are indeed impressive, one major limitation that I see with Copilot is it's price. In order to use Copilot, organizations will need to purchase separate licence over and above standard Microsoft 365 licences at approximately $30 USD per user per month. For organizations who issue Microsoft 365 Enterprise three (E3) or Enterprise five (5) licenses to users, Copilot will effectively double their licensing costs. Here is an awesome article by the Verge that expands on the cost and miminum purchase volume for Copilot licences. While Copilot will surely enable organizations to be more productive, it remains to be seen if they buy in. To learn more about Copilot check out Microsoft's launch content.

News: Microsoft Teams Channels are Changing (Again!)

Microsoft recently announced that they will be providing users with the ability to set the default for how posts are displayed in channels. This comes after they automatically changed the default to show new posts at the top of a channel in the new Microsoft Teams 2.0 desktop app which left many users unhappy. In my experience, many users still don't quite grasp how to effectively use channels (especially as a replacement to sending email) and I don't think these changes are going to make the transition easier. Check out this article to learn more.

Tool of the Month: Plumsail Forms For SharePoint

If you or your organization use SharePoint Online lists as tools to track and organize various datasets, then you might be interested in Plumsail for SharePoint. This awesome tool integrates seamlessly with SharePoint Online and allows users to create custom forms for SharePoint Lists without needing to write a single line of code. Using PlumSail for SharePoint, you can even create multiple tabs on a single SharePoint List form. The best part about this is that it is incredibly cost effective compared to leveraging MS Power Apps to do this. You can get a 30 free trial using my referral link here. Note that any purchases made using this link will earn me a commission at no added cost to you. These commissions are used to support my content creation business so that I can continue to provide you with helpful content and resources.