Posts by Joaoferreira

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 9)

Today, SharePoint turns 25. I couldn’t let this moment pass without sharing what the platform has meant to my own career, and how deeply it shaped the way I work, write, and share what I learn with all of you.

February is already in the rear‑view mirror, which means one thing: another February blog post marathon is done. This year, that resulted in 28 new posts, published one per day, covering everything from SharePoint and Microsoft Teams to Lists, Copilot, and Microsoft Places. Places deserves a special mention, it’s an area I hadn’t really explored on the blog before, and February gave me the excuse to finally change that.

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By João Ferreira Mar 2, 2026 Pulse 0 Comments

What’s new for Copilot – February 2026

After a relatively quiet month, Copilot is back in full swing. February brought updates across almost every Microsoft 365 app, and the pace feels familiar again.

As in previous roundups, I’m focusing on the smaller changes that actually make a difference. One of them is the ability to turn Copilot Pages into SharePoint news posts, making it easier to take AI‑generated content, refine it, and publish it where it belongs. Another is the unification of grounding tools and sources under a single plus menu in Copilot Chat, a subtle change that reduces friction for everyday use.

On the admin side, branding Copilot helps reinforce that users are working inside a trusted organizational space. There’s more to cover this month, but these updates already show how Copilot is quietly becoming easier, clearer, and more practical to use.

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By João Ferreira Mar 2, 2026 Copilot 0 Comments

February 2026 Marathon – 28 Days, 28 Blog Posts

After a year without the tradition, I decided to bring it back. Twenty-eight blog posts in twenty-eight days, one every single day of February, covering Microsoft 365 across SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Lists, Copilot, and this year with quite a few posts about Microsoft Places too.

I’ve done this challenge before, but this one was the hardest to finish. Not because I didn’t have enough to write about, I still have a backlog of over 100 post ideas sitting in a list waiting, but two things made pushing through genuinely tough this time.

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By João Ferreira Mar 1, 2026 Microsoft 365 0 Comments

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 8)

The past week brought two SharePoint updates that are worth paying attention to. The first is the arrival of Ground Chat in SharePoint Lists, powered by Context IQ, which starts to change how people interact with structured data inside Microsoft 365. The second is the announcement of a new SharePoint experience, timed neatly with the product’s 25th anniversary and clearly signalling where Microsoft wants the platform to go next.

On a more personal note, the blog post marathon got tougher toward the end of last week. I was sick, keeping up with the daily publishing cadence took more effort than expected, and promotion fell by the wayside. The posts still went out, just a little more quietly than usual. If you’ve been following the marathon, below is everything I’ve published since the last Microsoft 365 Pulse update. I hope you find something useful in there.

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By João Ferreira Feb 23, 2026 Pulse 0 Comments

Microsoft 365 profile cards now support user information from third party systems

Microsoft 365 profile cards are one of the most consistently used surfaces across the platform. They appear in Outlook, Teams, SharePoint, Microsoft Search, and Copilot. Despite that reach, the information shown has historically been limited to a small set of identity‑centric attributes.

Microsoft has now expanded this model. Organizations can surface additional user information on profile cards and populate that data not only from Microsoft Entra ID, but also from third‑party systems, most commonly HR platforms.

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By João Ferreira Feb 19, 2026 Microsoft 365 0 Comments

Microsoft Places Finder in Outlook: what it replaces and how to enable it

Finding a meeting room in Outlook has long meant using Room Finder: a flat list of resources with little sense of where those rooms actually are. It did the job, but it treated space as an abstract concept, disconnected from buildings, floors, and the way people move through an office. That model worked when offices were static.

Microsoft Places Finder replaces Room Finder in Outlook. It relies on the same Exchange room and workspace data, but changes how that data is surfaced. Instead of starting with a room list, users navigate by place: country, city, building, floor.

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By João Ferreira Feb 17, 2026 Microsoft Places 0 Comments

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 7)

For the second week in a row, Microsoft Teams leads the pack with the most updates in Microsoft 365. Among all the announcements, I’m particularly excited about the Simplified Teams app bar that promises a cleaner and more focused experience.

The past week also brought a red flag alert: SharePoint Designer 2013 will no longer work after July 14, 2026. If you haven’t migrated your workflows yet, now is the time to do it!

I’ve passed the halfway point of my February blog post marathon! This week, I’m sharing a selection of the 4 articles I published last week. You can follow all the updates on my blog, where I guarantee to publish something new every day until the end of the month.

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By João Ferreira Feb 16, 2026 Pulse 0 Comments

Microsoft Places roadmap highlights announced at ISE

At ISE, Microsoft shared several updates and upcoming capabilities for Microsoft Places, alongside a clearer outline of what is expected to land over the next six to nine months. The announcements focused primarily on reservation experiences, workplace presence, spatial data, and extensibility, rather than introducing a single flagship feature.

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By João Ferreira Feb 13, 2026 Microsoft Places 0 Comments

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 6)

This past week was surprisingly busy for Microsoft Teams, with updates landing across several areas. My highlight goes straight to the new digital signage support for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android — finally a simple, native way to bring content to the room screens. Another small but very welcome win: dark mode for the SharePoint admin center. My eyes will definitely appreciate that one.

Meanwhile, my February blog post marathon is still going strong. Last week I was in Barcelona for ISE, showcasing some of the Microsoft Places work I’ve been building at Appspace, so a few of the articles naturally leaned in that direction.

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By João Ferreira Feb 9, 2026 Pulse 0 Comments

How to Add Images to Microsoft Places Rooms and Desks

Microsoft Places has come a long way since its first preview release, back when it didn’t even have an admin interface. Fast‑forward to today, and admins can create and manage rooms and desks directly from the admin center. Capacity, amenities, names, zones… everything is there.

Well, almost everything. There’s still one small detail missing in the Places admin experience, and for someone visual like me, it makes all the difference: the ability to add an image that represents the room or desk.

Even though Microsoft Places doesn’t expose this option in the UI yet, there is a way to add these images today.

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By João Ferreira Feb 6, 2026 Microsoft Places 0 Comments