Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 46)

Ignite week is on. Microsoft is in San Francisco and we’re about to see a crazy amount of Microsoft 365 updates dropping fast. Before the floodgates open, here’s a quick warm‑up with my highlights from last week.

My SharePoint highlights (you know this is a dear topic for me):

• Branding governance via PowerShell — Tenant admins can now centrally manage site branding. Enforce enterprise themes, block custom branding on selected sites, and audit changes. Consistency and governance finally come together without manual policing.

• Official dark themes for SharePoint — Two Microsoft-designed dark themes land out of the box. Accessible, comfortable in low-light, and consistent with Microsoft’s design system. A simple win for look + usability.



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By João Ferreira Nov 17, 2025 Pulse 0 Comments

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 45)

This week’s highlights are all about Microsoft Copilot—and how it’s becoming smarter, more personal, and more aligned with your organization’s identity. These updates focus on making Copilot easier to adopt and more powerful for everyday work.

Three standout features: the new Explore pane, which offers guided, contextual steps so you can discover Copilot capabilities without guesswork; Q&A in Read Aloud, enabling real‑time voice interactions while listening to content; and the Organization Brand Kit, now applied to visual Copilot creations for consistent branding across images and layouts.

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By João Ferreira Nov 10, 2025 Pulse 0 Comments

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 44)

I’m dropping this week’s update a day later than usual. Monday was the first of the month, so I shipped the monthly roundups for SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Copilot, and Microsoft Viva, plus the podcast with the break down about what actually matters and how it may affect your work.

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By João Ferreira Nov 4, 2025 Pulse 0 Comments

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 43)

Last week was busier than usual while I prepped CollabDays Portugal for the weekend—and it was a success. Microsoft 365 didn’t take a break, though. There’s a solid list of updates ready for you.

Heads‑up for November: SharePoint document libraries are getting a layout update. The view selector moves left, and the New button shifts to the right. After years with the opposite setup, I expect some confusion. Refresh your training materials and prepare your help content.

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By João Ferreira Oct 27, 2025 Pulse 0 Comments

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 42)

This week’s update is landing a day later than usual — and for a good reason! I took a short break to run the half marathon in Rome. It was an incredible experience, and honestly, disconnecting from tech for a few days felt amazing. Running through the streets of Rome was surreal, and now I’m back, fully recharged and ready to dive into what’s new in Microsoft 365.

Let’s jump into the highlights! First up, Microsoft Teams is rolling out the ability to record meetings with audio only. This is a great move for those who prefer a more lightweight recording option. Second, GPT-5 will be the default model powering Copilot, which means smarter, faster, and more context-aware responses across Microsoft 365 apps. To me these two updates are definitely the stars of the week.

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By João Ferreira Oct 21, 2025 Pulse 0 Comments

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 41)

This week I’m bringing you two highlights from the SharePoint world that you won’t want to miss. The first is a post I wrote about how you can bring Microsoft Teams town halls into your SharePoint pages by embedding them. In the article I explain why this approach makes sense.

The second is an update about managing SharePoint agents in the Copilot control system. Admins will be able to view all SharePoint agents and block agents from being used in Copilot chat. This is especially useful if you need to restrict or allow certain agents within your organization.

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By João Ferreira Oct 13, 2025 Pulse 0 Comments

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 40)

Among the many enhancements from last week, one feature stood out: Teams channels are now available in Context IQ prompts. This update is part of Microsoft’s ongoing effort to enhance Copilot in Microsoft 365 with Context IQ (CIQ) — a set of AI capabilities that lets users search for, select, and insert relevant enterprise or personal data directly into their prompts or conversations. Now, when writing Copilot prompts in the chat box, you can use Context IQ to search for and select Teams channels, grounding your prompts in contextually relevant data and improving the accuracy and usefulness of Copilot responses.

The week was also marked by an avalanche of updates across the Power Platform, with Dynamics taking center stage.

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By João Ferreira Oct 6, 2025 Pulse 0 Comments

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 39)

This week, I want to highlight a small but mighty feature in Microsoft Teams that’s now available worldwide. If you work with external users, you’ll know the pain of sharing files. Until now, you had to upload them to OneDrive or—worse—resort to unauthorized platforms. That’s no longer the case. You can now attach files directly in chats with external users, saving time and avoiding frustration. It’s not a brand-new announcement, but its global rollout makes it worth sharing.

On the broader Microsoft 365 front, the standout update for me is the arrival of Claude in Copilot. It’s exciting to see model choice becoming a reality—currently available in Copilot Studio and the Researcher agent.

And for all the SharePoint developers out there: Microsoft just updated their plans—SPFx Field Customizers are here to stay (at least for now). The earlier idea to retire them in favor of JSON column formatting has been shelved. Column Formatting is still great for simpler scenarios, but if you need advanced logic like API calls, SPFx is still your friend.

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By João Ferreira Sep 29, 2025 Pulse 0 Comments

Hands-On Microsoft 365 Pulse – Weekly Updates (Week 38)

This past week, SharePoint introduced the Knowledge Agent in preview, bringing powerful AI capabilities across the platform. Even better, Microsoft made it available on the same day it was announced—no waiting required.

Microsoft Teams features keep coming out like hot cakes, making it challenging to stay on top of everything. With so many announcements coming out, I figured I’d put together a recap of everything that’s been announced since the beginning of summer so you don’t miss the important stuff.

While AI has been stealing the spotlight, another significant change quietly happened this September: the return of the new SharePoint page templates. After briefly disappearing, they’re back—and this time, Microsoft says they’re here to stay.

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By João Ferreira Sep 22, 2025 Pulse 0 Comments