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New to Microsoft 365 in April—new tools to streamline compliance and make collaboration inclusive and engaging

This month, we released new features and services in Microsoft 365 to help you meet your compliance requirements, manage security policies, and reach more audiences with your content.

Here’s a look at what’s new in April.

Assess and reduce risk and protect sensitive data

We’re releasing new solutions designed to help you assess your compliance risk and manage policies to protect sensitive data both inside and outside of your organization.

Manage sensitive and high-risk data—Today, we announced the availability of several new compliance capabilities to give you more control over data privacy across your organization. Compliance Manager now allows you to create custom risk assessments of any application used by your organization. Office 365 Advanced Message Encryption enables admins to revoke and expire encrypted emails. Additionally, the new data investigation capability in the Office 365 Security and Compliance Center enables you to search for high-risk content, such as phishing emails and leaked sensitive data, and take actions to remediate risks.

Screenshot of the Exchange admin center.

Address data residency needs with Multi-Geo Capabilities in Office 365Multi-Geo Capabilities now enables customers to control where SharePoint Team sites and Office 365 Groups content are stored at rest, in addition to Exchange and OneDrive data. Multi-Geo Capabilities helps multinational companies address their regional, industry-specific, or organizational data residency requirements in Office 365 by enabling them to control where each employee’s Office 365 content is stored at rest. Contact your Microsoft representative for more information.

Deploy security policies tailored to your organization’s security needsSecurity Policy Advisor is a new service that uses behavior-based analysis to help IT admins quantify the risks and benefits of applying a tailored policy and then monitor policy health over time. Admins can also deploy policies with one click and easily update or even roll back policies. Together, these capabilities help IT admins streamline their workflow and manage across their policies. This service is now available as a preview for all organizations with Office 365 ProPlus. To get started, administrators can visit the Office client management portal.

Image of Recommendations for targeted users in Microsoft Office Client.

Improve your security posture with Azure AD Password Protection—Earlier this month, we announced that Azure AD Password Protection is now generally available. Azure AD Password Protection proactively helps users avoid choosing weak and vulnerable passwords, lowering the risk of being compromised by a password spray attack. To get started, sign in to the Azure Portal with a global administrator account.

Screenshot of a banned password list in Microsoft Azure.

Reach and engage more people

New capabilities help you connect with more people and create more engaging content across multiple languages.

Connect and engage both inside and outside of your organization with Microsoft Kaizala—Earlier this month, we announced that Microsoft Kaizala, a simple and secure work management and messaging app, is rolling out to Office 365 customers globally and will become part of Microsoft Teams over the next 12–18 months. Kaizala enables you to securely connect and engage with large groups outside your organization’s directory—including contract workers, vendors, partners, and customers—using a phone number-based identity for easy onboarding and a simple mobile user experience. You can download Microsoft Kaizala today from the iOS and Android stores.

Screenshot of Microsoft Kaizala.

Break down language barriers with multi-language support for Editor in PowerPoint—Receive suggestions on grammar, word choice, and conciseness regardless of which languages are included on your slides. Editor in PowerPoint even supports multiple languages on the same slide—perfect for all-hands, global presentations, lesson plans, and inclusive learning. Multi-language support for Editor in PowerPoint will begin rolling out to Office Insiders this month.

Animated screenshot of multi-language support utilized on a Microsoft PowerPoint slide.

Other updates

  • IT administrators can now determine the level of diagnostic and related data that Office sends to Microsoft to help ensure your Office apps are up to date, secure, and performing as expected.
  • A new Mini toolbar in OneNote now appears above text when content is highlighted with contextual formatting tools for faster editing.
  • There are now nearly 350 new icons to choose from when you insert an icon throughout Office 365, including new categories like accessibility, holidays, and process.
  • We released new 3D guidelines in Office 365 to help designers and professionals create custom 3D objects that are compatible with the Office ecosystem.