Microsoft is adding a release status tag to its Microsoft 365 message center notifications to help administrators understand the roll-out progress of updates. Three status values are available: Launched, Rolling Out, and Scheduled. The acid test will be to see if Microsoft can accurately tag message center notifications with the correct value.
Microsoft 365 message center notifications now boast a “relevance recommendation.” This is a visual marker computed by Microsoft based on aspects of the change. It’s intended as a way to highlight important changes so that administrators can dedicate more time to understanding the impact of these changes on their tenants. Sometimes the recommendation isn’t perfect, but you can tell Microsoft what you think and go ahead with your own assessment of how important any individual change really is.
The message center notifications posted in the Microsoft 365 admin center are an invaluable source of information about change in a tenant. It’s curious that some administrators don’t think they have the time to keep abreast of the changes reported in these notifications. Microsoft is steadily improving the quality of what’s posted, but delayed features remain and issue.
Message center notifications for service changes posted to the Microsoft 365 admin center will include monthly active user counts for affected workloads. That sounds good, until you realize some of the downloads incurred by depending on the Microsoft Graph Reports API as the source of user data. Still, it’s better than nothing and a welcome advance.