As we’ve continually noted in our recent blogs, Microsoft doesn’t hold back on making sure their software is continually updated for your benefit. In Office 365 Government, you find updates almost every month of the year, with recent ones focusing more pointedly on collaboration features.
One feature that’s recently had a big update is Office 365 Groups. This is a membership tool letting users be able to collaborate through the app of their choice. It easily lets you communicate across unrelated Microsoft apps like Outlook, Yammer, and Microsoft Teams.
The Groups feature manages to format all communications in a way that integrates perfectly across different apps. At the same time, it’s completely secure without incompatibility problems.
With Microsoft adding some new features this month, it’s only the beginning of what they’re planning for Groups through this year.
Features Helping Your Administrator Manage Groups
One of the areas previously needing updates in Office 365 Groups was allowing admins to better manage groups using the service. Without attention to controlling the way the service works and assuring compliance, it can potentially lead to trouble.
Microsoft now addresses this and kicked off their updates this month with a “Restore Deleted Groups” feature, something every government office needs. The tool allows you or your admin to restore a deleted group up to 30 days. A group stays in memory for this time period, allowing you to change your mind and restore everything intact.
Another related new tool is “Retention Policies” so your admin can keep important data and discard things you don’t need. Using this is going to help you remove clutter for focus on data your government office needs. It makes life easier for staying compliant and adhering to internal policies as well.
“Label Management” is another related feature to the above. Here, your admin has power to label emails and documents to enforce retention rules. For more comprehensiveness, it lets admins permanently delete certain data after a set period of time.
Some of the Best Group Features Already Available
It wasn’t long ago when Microsoft added numerous features to Groups that enhanced it further. Tools like guest access ability lets you set up group discussions from outside your organization. You also have a data classification feature so you can give a label to your group discussion. Those working internally now know whether your group is top-secret, unclassified, or corporate confidential.
To add to more confidentiality in your group, you can even make select group members confidential to protect their identities. In the world of government security, this is going to become an essential tool.
Along with a groups activity report, you or your admin know what the activities are of everyone in your group, including the messages they receive.
Upcoming Features
These new features aren’t the end of the story for Office 365 Groups. Expect to see more features throughout the year. Some of the ones coming up before summer focus again on helping admin duties and listening to continual customer feedback.
You’ll find features like a new expire policy to let you delete a group and associated apps through an automated system.
Also look out for an appending text feature, giving admins access to renaming group names regardless of the application used. It’s another example of how Microsoft wants to streamline your admin’s job to prevent downtime solving problems.
Classification descriptions are yet another upcoming feature admins can look forward to. They can even create or modify a group’s classification description across multiple apps, no matter which one used for the group activity.
More Information
Keep reading us at cFocus Software Incorporated as we explore more new and old features in Office 365 Government.