M365 Weekly Newsletter
Issue #218
☁️What’s on my mind
A few months since the last issue. Not quite “M365 Weekly”, right?
What happened?
I dumped the last few issues into Claude and asked for a review. Round one, it played the nice guy. Polite feedback – completely useless. I wasn’t impressed at all.
Then I cranked Claude’s honesty setting up to eleven and ran it again.
I regretted it in about four seconds. What came back was an audit I would not wish on anyone, and the worst part is that most of it was right.
I closed the laptop and stayed away from my newsletter folders for a while.
So this issue is the in-between version. Not the old thing, not the new one either. Will do an overhaul somewhere in September.
If there is something you want to read here, hit reply and tell me. Costs you nothing.
Have a nice rest of the week,
Matic
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☁️Productivity & Modern Workplace
The rate of change in Microsoft 365 is getting worse. Mostly, we’re just guessing faster than our clients can catch up, while Microsoft quietly changes the rules beneath us.
I found m365maps.com in 2021 and then kept quiet about it for months.
Not because it was a secret, but because I was afraid that if every partner knew about it, nobody would need to call me anymore.
Some context. I was almost a year into Cloud Presales, with lockdowns all around, and my whole job had collapsed into video calls with partner techs and sales guys, which became the only thing keeping the days from blurring into one.
Between them, I lived on Microsoft’s Learn portal. Twenty tabs open, three of them contradicting each other.
Then m365maps licensing diagrams showed up in my search results.
I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. The customer asks: “Is that included in Business Premium, or do we need E3?” You are 90 percent sure.
Three weeks later, the feature is not there, and you’re the one who is blamed. Been there.
What the site actually gives you:
- Side-by-side comparison of any plan, so the E3 versus E5 conversation stops being a memory test. The best part: each comparison gets its own URL. Paste it into the email to your customer, and they’ll see what you see. Just for example M365 E3 vs. M365 E5 vs. Business Premium.
- A searchable feature matrix that tells you which SKUs include a specific feature.
- Most of the boxes link straight to the Learn documentation behind it.
- A change log, so you catch what Microsoft added, moved, or quietly renamed.
- A product rename page, because Microsoft rebrands faster than we update our slides.
I stopped hiding m365maps years ago. The partners who use it show up to calls with sharper questions, and those calls go faster for both sides.
☁️Copilot & AI
Anthropic Claude Opus 5 in Microsoft 365 Copilot. Microsoft 365 Copilot now includes Anthropic Claude Opus 5, giving you stronger reasoning for complex, multi-step work. You create better documents, analyses, presentations, and workflows across apps, while Copilot handles execution. You keep control, supported by enterprise-grade security, privacy, and compliance.
☁️Sysadmin Stuff
Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR) will require registered authentication methods from September 7th. Starting September 7, 2026, Entra aligns self-service password reset with MFA registration. You can no longer configure separate authentication methods for password reset. Users must use the same methods defined for MFA, simplifying onboarding, reducing confusion, and standardizing identity verification across your organization’s processes.
☁️Security & Data Governance
The sad state of governance APIs for Copilot and Agent 365. Copilot and Agent 365 governance APIs remain limited despite GA status. You get mostly read-only access, minimal policy control, no app permission support for key actions, and heavy reliance on beta endpoints, making large-scale automation difficult and forcing manual management through the admin portal.
☁️Noteworthy (long)reads
Is Microsoft 365 Too Complex for Humans to Understand? Microsoft 365 now demands cross-service thinking, not siloed expertise. You deal with constant updates, complex dependencies, and growing security and compliance layers. AI adds pressure, exposing weak data foundations. Understanding how everything connects inside your tenant and where all the risks are – that’s the real challenge.
☁️On a Less Serious Note
☁️ We value your feedback!
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☁️ Last but not least …
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- Get in touch / Share cool M365 or other stuff: matic@m365weekly.com