We started a new, 2020 year. The beginning of January is strictly connected with building plans and expectations for the whole year.
I want to share with you the most expected by me top, new features of Office 365 which will be delivered in 2020.
I have two most expected new features that will be delivered to Office 365 in the 2020 year. In my opinion, both of them will change the way how we use Office 365.
The new modern version of Yammer will be globally available in the first half of the year. I expect this will be finally the tool used globally for internal communication and will take over the role of discussion boards in the organizations.
On the other hand, the final product that will be the result of Project Cortex (this codename will be changed) could be game-changer in internal knowledge management. Today there are no tools in Microsoft world to generate semi-automated and complex KBs. I’m extremely thrilled to see the final results of Project Cortex.
New Yammer
In the next 6 months, we should get totally refreshed and modernized Yammer App. New version of Yammer is a simplified and nice tool that will help you to improve internal communication.
I’m not a big fan of an old version of Yammer, which has been developed almost 10 years ago. Look & feel of the tool is nasty and luck of possible integrations not helping in adoption.
Main goal of the New Yammer is to:
- modernize user interface of the application
- deliver new or refreshed functions like Communities, Q&A sections or Live Streams
- tons of integration with SharePoint, Teams, Stream (this one looks great) and Outlook
You can ask why an additional tool for communication is needed in Office 365, we have SharePoint and Teams already. New Yammer seems to plan to take place on the global level of communication which will be easily delivered to other apps: SharePoint and Teams.
It could be one of the biggest surprises of 2020. I cannot wait to try it with business user 😉
New Yammer key information
Announcement: Microsoft Yammer Blog
Video: Ignite session
Roadmap: Yammer roadmap – rollout will be split into features
Global Availability: Q1-Q3 2020
Licensing: Included in all plans
Preview Program: Request here
Project Cortex
Project Cortex seems to be a heavy beast that could become a true game-changer in knowledge management. This totally new application that will be delivered to Office 365 Suite. The system will be strongly based on Artificial Intelligence that adds an additional layer to the knowledge hosted on Office 365.
The idea behind the application is to automatically generate the Knowledge Base based on created terms. The system will try to gather people, documents and information across Office 365 and based on that build Knowledge Base articles. Terms used in emails and documents will automatically link to the KB pages. Sounds interesting, right? 🙂
Moreover, Project Cortex will deliver Machine Teaching functionalities that should help in data recognition on scanned documents, etc. This could be really great alternative for OCR or Flex Dat Recognition systems used on Invoice scanning.
I’m really hyped about Project Cortex.
Project Cortex key information
Announcement: Microsoft 365 Blog
Video: Ignite session
Roadmap: Not yet available
Global Availability: Q2-Q4 2020
Licensing: Premium
Preview Program: Request here
Microsoft Roadmap
Most valuable resources about Microsoft Roadmap that worth to follow:
- Roadmap: Microsft 365 Roadmap – detailed report off all updates in the Microsoft roadmap
- Intrazone: Microsoft Intrazone Podcast – Microsoft Product Team podcast dedicated to new features that will be published on Office 365
- UserVoice: Office 365 ; SharePoint ; Teams ; OneDrive ; more – space where you can share and vote for the suggestions for the Microsoft products
- MyIgnite: Ignite Video Service – repository of all sessions related with new announcements shared during Microsoft Ignite
- Message Center: Office 365 Admin Message Center – your local Office 365 message center that contains information about new features on your tenant
