How to remove Assignments from Microsoft Teams EDU

Friday, December 18, 2020


Microsoft Teams EDU tenants include an Assignments app in Teams. The Assignments and Grades features in Teams for Education allow educators to assign tasks, work, or quizzes to their students. Educators can manage assignment timelines, instructions, add resources to turn in, grade with rubrics, and more. They can also track class and individual student progress in the Grades tab.

You can learn more about Assignments and Grades in Teams for Education here.

Higher ed customers may want to disable the Assignments app because they already use other ways of assigning and tracking assignments. For them, it can be confusing to students and faculty when the Assignments app is pinned to the left rail of Teams.

Pinned apps in Teams are normally assigned using a Setup Policy in the Teams Admin Center at https://admin.teams.microsoft.com (Teams apps > Setup policies). Here, you can configure which apps are pinned to the Teams app navigation bar and the order in which they are displayed.

Notice that the disappearing banner at the top of the policy says, "Because you have at least one Office 365 Education license, the Assignments app will be automatically included in each app setup policy." You will also notice that the Assignments app is not listed as a pinned app, so you cannot remove it.

In order to remove Assignments from pinned apps, configure a Permission Policy (Teams apps > Permission policies). Customers who want to remove this would normally edit the Global (Org-wide default) policy, but you can also create a new policy for this and assign it to specific users.

Edit the policy thusly:

  • Under Microsoft apps, select "Block specific apps and allow all others" in the dropdown list.
  • Click the Block apps button .
  • Search for "Assignments", then click Add, and Block.
  • Click the Save button.

It may take up to an hour before the Assignments app is removed from pinned apps for the users the permission policy applies to.

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Important Outlook Connectivity Update for Microsoft 365

Friday, December 11, 2020

Here we go again.

It appears that Microsoft going to actively block connectivity for older versions of Outlook on November 1, 2021 -- less than 11 months from now. 

Previously, Outlook connectivity has always been best effort for older versions, meaning that if you can connect to Microsoft 365 with an older non-supported version, then great. If you can't connect, you are required to install a supported version.

The reasoning for this is noble - Microsoft doesn't want older less secure versions of Outlook to connect to the service. Most Office 365/Microsoft 365 customers are already running Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (aka Office ProPlus) which is always up-to-date, so no problem.

But future Microsoft 365 and hybrid customers will need to upgrade all their clients prior to migration, and a lot of enterprises won’t be able to update in that time.

The bottom line is, if your clients are not already running Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise and you plan to migrate to Microsoft 365, you need to start upgrading your Office apps now.

Here is the notification from Microsoft:

Update to Microsoft 365 and Outlook for Windows connectivity

MC229143

 

Major update: Announcement started

Applied To: All

 


To ensure that we meet performance expectations, we are updating the supported versions of Outlook for Windows that can connect to Microsoft 365 services. 

Effective November 1, 2021, the following versions of Outlook for Windows, as part of Office and Microsoft 365 Apps, will not be able to connect with Office 365 and Microsoft 365 services. 

Office and Microsoft 365 Apps

Outlook for Windows Version

Office 2013

15.0.4970.9999 and older

Office 2016

16.0.4599.9999 and older

Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise (formerly Office 365 ProPlus)

1705 and older

Microsoft 365 Apps for business (formerly Office 365 Business)

1705 and older

[Key Points:]

  • Major: Retirement
  • Timing: November 1, 2021
  • Action: Ensure Outlook for Windows client are updated accordingly

[How this will affect your organization:]

Versions that are newer than minimum version requirements listed above, but are not the currently supported version, may experience connectivity issues.

To see a list of the currently supported versions, visit Update history for Microsoft 365 Apps (listed by date)(for Microsoft 365 Apps) or Latest updates for versions of Office that use Windows Installer (MSI)(see “Latest Public Update” for Office 2013 and 2016).

Supported versions of Outlook for Windows in Office and Microsoft365 will continue to connect to Microsoft 365 services as expected. 

 [What you need to do to prepare:]

We recommend that all users upgrade to the supported versions of Office and Microsoft 365 Apps.

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What we've learned working remote over the past 8 months in 2020

Thursday, December 3, 2020

It’s no secret that the IT landscape has changed dramatically over the past 8 months. Due to the pandemic, organizations have had to pivot overnight, and what was hoped to be a short-term problem has turned into the new normal. This applies to the way these organizations deal with their customers, employees, and business partners.

In this article on the ENOW Software Blog, I’ll talk about the changes I’ve seen, and lessons learned from my customers.

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