Modern Work Supportability – Celebrating Women’s History Month

An image of a collage of women working at Microsoft.

In honor of Women’s History Month, we decided to interview a few of the women who are a part of our Modern Work Supportability Women’s group. The group grew out of a grassroots effort in 2019 to form a quorum of women and their allies to encourage and support one another in their professional and personal lives. Since then, they have worked to recruit other women and minorities for Modern Work Supportability roles and have spent time focusing on technical and personal growth areas.

Ross: Hi Jessica. What is your current role in Modern Work Supportability?

Jessica: I’m a Supportability Program Manager focused on commercial accounts, billing, purchase, and subscription management with Microsoft 365. My job is to review trends within our support volume and determine ways, with the help of our engineering team, to improve their experience or utilize our self-help platform to provide customers with the information they need to resolve their issue.

Ross: What is your professional background?

Jessica: I have a non-standard background for getting into technology. I have my bachelor’s in psychology, a master’s in management, and a second master’s in information systems and operations management. I’ve been working in tech since my junior year of college and went on to work full time for my university after my first master’s. My focus was on training and development for both our employees and the university staff. I started working at Microsoft a few years later in customer support.

Ross: What is your advice to students considering a career in technology?

Jessica: My advice for pursuing a career in technology is don’t worry too much about if you can or cannot code. Jobs in technology cross a large variety of skillsets and all are valuable in creating the best customer experience.

Ross: Hi Leslie. What role do you play in Modern Work Supportability?

Leslie: In October 2021, I became a Supportability Program Manager (SPM) for Microsoft Teams. Our team analyzes trends in worldwide support data for Microsoft Teams. With this, we aim to influence product improvements, increase self-help success through Support Central and diagnostics, and make support engineering processes more efficient. We have a small group of dedicated SPMs to Teams. We also work closely with the OneDrive and SharePoint SPMs, sharing new projects and lessons learned.  

Ross: What is your professional background?

Leslie: I started at Microsoft right after I graduated college in the summer of 2016. I earned my bachelor’s in mechanical engineering with a minor in entrepreneurship and innovation from Columbia University. I began my career as a SharePoint Consultant and soon moved to the Customer Engineer (now Cloud Solutions Architect) role. In this role, I helped advise a variety of enterprise customers on how to build solutions using SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, and Power Platform.

Ross: What has been your experience with women in tech at Microsoft?

Leslie: When I joined Microsoft, I became involved in the Microsoft Academy for College Hires (MACH), now called Aspire, women’s group. We attended regular Skype (before Teams took off!) calls with each other and I enjoyed being part of a community of kind, hardworking and welcoming women. A few years later, the Women at Microsoft (WAM) group in Charlotte was created and I began to attend their events.

In March 2020, I attended the annual WAM conference in New York, which was a fun and enriching experience to meet many women in different roles across Microsoft. When I joined my current role, I was invited to the Modern Work Supportability women’s group, and I found another great community of women whom I could lean on for perspective, advice, and laughs. I’m so glad that such Employee Resource Groups (ERG) exist at Microsoft, and at different scales. The intimacy of smaller groups of women makes it possible to foster a tight-knit, supportive community of people who understand and can empathize with some or many aspects of my professional experience.

In addition, I’ve found the camaraderie of this group to be one of the best parts of working at Microsoft. I work from home most of the time, and when I do meet with others in person or for a fun virtual event, it’s usually with one of these groups or with individual women from them.

Ross: Hi Amber. What’s your role in Modern Work Supportability at Microsoft?

Amber: I am a Support Planner for the Viva Suite and other Microsoft 365 applications, focusing on designing, enabling, and launching end-to-end support experiences for our customers, Microsoft 365 administrators.

Ross: What is your background in tech?

Amber: I grew up with Microsoft in my backyard. The main campus was literally just a few blocks away from my parent’s home. Now, flash forward a few years, after earning my Bachelor of Arts in Communication from Santa Clara University and my Master of International Business from Seattle University, I landed my first job with Microsoft in Worldwide Operations.

As a kid, I would have never imagined myself working at a tech company, nonetheless one of the most renowned in the world. Growing up, I viewed Microsoft as a group of stressed-out, male-dominated coders who worked 24×7 and had no lives. That was the stereotype. But, as I got older and learned more about Microsoft as a business and had several friends who worked for the company, and my views changed. It wasn’t just for programmers. I was attracted to the people and operational side of Microsoft. I felt like, hey, tech companies can use people like me, and I went all-in.

Ross: Why is the Modern Work Supportability Women’s group important?

Amber: As with many of the resource groups within Microsoft, the group has been a great place to celebrate commonalities and diversity on a smaller scale. It’s a place for us to learn from one another in both professional and personal ways. With the hectic nature of focusing on deliverables, it gives us a chance to step back and really share what we bring to the table on a human level. It’s a place to not just recognize diversity of gender, but diversity of culture, personality, and thought.

Over the past couple of years, I’ve had the pleasure of leading this amazing group. In some ways, I’ve learned more from that experience than from my 15 years in different roles at the company. It has helped me bring my full self to work, and if everyone is able to do that, every organization will be stronger for it!

@RossS leads the worldwide Modern Work Supportability team in the Customer Service & Support (CSS) organization at Microsoft. 

@JessicaDarby is a Supportability Program Manager on the CSS Modern Work Supportability team focused on commercial accounts, billing, purchase, and subscription management with Microsoft 365. 

@Leslie Hill is a Supportability Program Manager on the CSS Modern Work Supportability team focused on Microsoft Teams. 

@Amber Plumb is a Support Planner on the CSS Modern Work Supportability team focused on Viva Suite and other Microsoft 365 applications. 

The CSS Modern Work Supportability team delivers innovative self-help solutions and diagnostics, in-service enhancements, and support programs to help customers get maximum value from their Microsoft 365 commercial subscriptions and create an easy-to-use, connected support experience.  

Continue the conversation by joining us in the Microsoft 365 community! Want to share best practices or join community events? Become a member by “Joining” the Microsoft 365 community. For tips & tricks or to stay up to date on the latest news and announcements directly from the product teams, make sure to Follow or Subscribe to the Microsoft 365 Blog space!

Learn how to enable the Microsoft Loop app, now in Public Preview

An image of the Microsoft Loop app on a desktop device.

As organizations continue to evolve in these dynamic times, they need modern tools that can embrace ambiguity and enable people to work where and how they want to in order to be effective. Microsoft Loop is the perfect solution for your teams to think, plan, and create together, like never before, even when they’re not in the same place. It’s a transformative co-creation experience that brings together teams, content and tasks across your tools and devices. It is a new app that combines a powerful and flexible canvas with portable components that stay in sync and move freely across Microsoft 365 apps. Learn more here.

We are excited to announce that Microsoft Loop is now in Public Preview! The Loop app is opt-in during our Public Preview, so as an IT Admin, you need to follow the steps below for your users to experience it, otherwise it is disabled. Once enabled, you and the people in your organization can try it today at: https://loop.microsoft.com/

Why enable it for your organization?

You can empower your organization and join the modern workplace movement by enabling Loop. Loop lets your team collaborate seamlessly, even when working remotely and in hybrid environments. With Loop, you can create and share Loop components-portable pieces of content that sync across all the places they have been shared including, Microsoft Teams, Outlook, Word for the web, Whiteboard, and the Loop app. These components are always up to date, regardless of where they’re shared, and your team can edit them inline from those applications. The Loop app itself enables your teams to collect everything they need for a project in one place, enabling them to think, plan and create together.

Learn more about the end-user value of the Loop app here in our announcement blog.

How do I enable Loop app for my organization?

All the information you need is in our Loop admin settings documentation. This Microsoft Learn article offers a screen-by-screen version of the same guidance.

Overview of steps

1. Create a security group that will contain all the users in your organization who you want to grant access to the Loop app during Public Preview.


2. Create a Cloud Policy, scoped to the security group you created above, to enable the Loop app.


3. Wait an hour or so for the setting to propagate and log in to Loop!


4. Ensure your firewall rules allow all the appropriate services.

Creating a Security Group

There are two ways to create the group. You can create a dynamic security group, which can be populated with user accounts via queries, or you can create a static security group, which is populated manually by you, the IT admin.

Dynamic Security Group

Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/active-directory/external-identities/use-dynamic-groups

What are dynamic groups?

A dynamic group is a dynamic configuration of security group membership for Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) available in the Azure portal. Administrators can set rules to populate groups that are created in Azure AD based on user attributes, such as user type, department, or country/region. Members can be automatically added to or removed from a security group based on their attributes. These groups can provide access to applications or cloud resources (SharePoint sites, documents) and to assign licenses to members. Learn more about dedicated groups in Azure Active Directory.

Prerequisites

Azure AD Premium P1 or P2 licensing is required to create and use dynamic groups. Learn more in Create attribute-based rules for dynamic group membership in Azure Active Directory.

Creating an “all users” dynamic group

You can create a group containing all users within a tenant using a membership rule. When users are added or removed from the tenant in the future, the group’s membership is adjusted automatically.

1. Sign into the Azure portal with an account that is assigned the Global administrator or User administrator role in the tenant.


2. Select Azure Active Directory.


3. Under Manage, select Groups, and then select New group.


4. On the New Group page, under Group type, select Security. Enter a Group name and Group description for the new group.


5. Under Membership type, select Dynamic User, and then select Add dynamic query.


6. Above the Rule syntax text box, select Edit. On the Edit rule syntax page, type the following expression in the text box:
   user.objectId -ne nulluser.objectId -ne null


7. Select OK. The rule appears in the Rule syntax box: 

An image demonstrating how to create a Dynamic membership rule for a new group in the Azure portal.

8. Select Save. The new dynamic group will now include B2B guest users and member users.

9. Select Create on the New group page to create the group.

Creating a group of members only

If you want your group to exclude guest users and include only members of your tenant, create a dynamic group as described above, but in the Rule syntax box, enter the following expression:

(user.objectId -ne null) and (user.userType -eq “Member”)

The following image shows the rule syntax for a dynamic group modified to include members only and exclude guests:

An image demonstrating the configuration of Dynamic membership rules in the Azure portal.

Static Security Group

Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/admin/email/create-edit-or-delete-a-security-group

Add a security group

1. In the Microsoft 365 admin center, go to the Groups > Groups page.


2. On the Groups page, select Add a group.


3. On the Choose a group type page, choose Security.


4. Follow the steps to complete creation of the group.

Add members to a security group

1. Select the security group name on the Groups page, and on the Members tab, select View all and manage members.


2. In the group pane, select Add members and choose the person from the list or type the name of the person you want to add in the Search box, and then select Save.

Note: To remove members, select [X] next to their name.

Creating a Cloud Policy

Source: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-blog/how-to-secure-your-remote-workers-with-office-cloud-policy/ba-p/1308579. Make sure to also check out this video to walk you through these steps:  The New Office Cloud Policy Service.

The instructions below assume you have already created a security group as instructed above. Please note, Cloud Policy requires a Security group, you cannot create the group in config.office.com.

1. Login into https://config.office.com with your administrator account and choose Customization > Policy Management > Create to create a new policy for the Loop App in your tenant. You can name the policy as you please. In the image example below, we named it, “Loop Policy”:

An image of the Policy Management tab in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center.

2. In Assignments, choose whether this policy applies to users of locally installed Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise, or just to users who anonymously access documents using Office for the web. Assign a Security Group to scope your policy. In the image example below, we used the previously created Loop app Security Group. Each policy configuration can only be assigned to one group, and each group can only be assigned one policy configuration.

An image of the “Choose the scope” page on the Policy Management tab in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center.

3. Configure the Loop app policy “Create and view Loop files in Loop.”

a. Note: If you also need to change the default configuration of Loop component integrations across M365 apps (they are all default ON if you do nothing), or specifically need to change the default configuration of Loop components in Outlook (they are default ON if you do nothing), this is the same part of the process where you would configure.

b. Note: Also, if you have disabled some of the green highlighted feedback features, please reset them to default or enable them in order to ensure that your organization can send high quality and actionable feedback to our product engineering team. Specifically, the three items highlighted in green in the image below: “Allow users to submit feedback to Microsoft,” “Allow users to include screenshots and attachments when they submit feedback to Microsoft,” and “Allow user to include log files and content samples when they submit feedback to Microsoft.”

An image of a list of Loop policies specifying the platforms and applications they can be applied to and the status of each policy’s configuration.

An image providing examples of policy settings available for configuration in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center.

An image demonstrating drop-down menu options available for Configuration settings for the Loop files policy in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center.

4. Click Save.

5. Log into https://loop.microsoft.com to test with:

a. An account you enabled (it’s included in your security group in the steps above).

b. An account you disabled (it’s NOT included it in your security group in the steps above).

Loop service requirements: Enabling traffic through your firewall

If you use firewall rules, ensure connections to Loop services are enabled; they are the same services you’ve already enabled for Office 365, including web sockets. Read more here, and ensure you’ve enabled the services documented here: Office 365 URLs and IP address ranges.

Conclusion

When Loop is disabled or users don’t have access, they will see this screen:

An image demonstrating the message that will display when Loop is disabled or users don’t have access to the app: “The Loop app is not enabled in your organization.”

When Loop is enabled, they will see the Loop app!

An image of the Microsoft Loop app providing an example workspace titled, “Project home.”

Helpful resources

• New Microsoft Loop app is built to for modern co-creation


• Empowering collaboration with AI in Loop

More information about Loop components in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem:

• Use Loop components in Outlook


• Overview of Loop components in Teams


• First things to know about Loop components

Continue the conversation by joining us in the Microsoft 365 community! Want to share best practices or join community events? Become a member by “Joining” the Microsoft 365 community. For tips & tricks or to stay up to date on the latest news and announcements directly from the product teams, make sure to Follow or Subscribe to the Microsoft 365 Blog space!

Reinventing collaboration with AI in Microsoft Loop

Microsoft Loop is the latest app from Microsoft to help teams think, plan, and create together like never before. We have been listening to many customers in our early feedback sessions, and in these sessions a pattern emerged. Every person we spoke to valued collaboration. And they continued to struggle even with the latest iteration of tools. To get past the blank page. To communicate clearly. To stay aware of the work of others. And to keep track of knowledge and resources. We hear you; this is why we’re leveraging AI to reinvent collaboration. So, you can focus on the parts you love.

We are finally ready to share what we’ve been working on. And we’re excited for you to play a part in shaping this AI-powered future! To make that happen we are introducing the Experiments tab within Loop Settings, a place to opt-in to cutting-edge features.

An image of the Experiments tab within the Loop app settings providing toggles to enable or disable Copilot and Jumpstart Workspace.

Copilot in Loop

We know that it can be hard to get started from a blank page. Finding the right word, understanding the next steps to attack a problem, and capturing an idea in writing can be a drag – or a great opportunity for a spark of inspiration.

We hope you can let Copilot spark your inspiration. With AI-powered suggestions, Copilot will generate content based on what you ask it to create. Because it’s integrated into Loop, you and your colleagues will be able to collaborate in real-time on the content it generates.

To get started, cycle through some examples with the Create, Brainstorm, Blueprint, and Describe buttons. There are many directions you can take with Copilot, so we also invite you to write your own requests from scratch. Explore and unblock collaboration with the power of AI.

An image demonstrating a preview of Copilot with a user request stating: “Propose an outline for an upcoming meeting to discuss a product launch plan.”

Participants in our initial feedback sessions love that they can continue to work with Copilot even after it generates initial text – and we think you will too. You and your team will be able to edit the content directly and continue to build on the output by asking Copilot to change the tone, format, content, and more. The history allows you to rewind and explore without fear of losing any work. With Copilot you’re in control.

An animated image demonstrating Copilot in action: Turning an outline into a paragraph, providing additional details, then turning it into an agenda.

We can’t wait to see how you will use Copilot in your day-to-day work. Please share feedback with us in the comments section of this blog or in-app using #Copilot in your feedback so it routes directly to our product team.

An image providing an example of the Give feedback button.

Copilot in Loop FAQ

Who can use Copilot?

• To help us scale performantly, we are starting with a limited private preview and will provide additional details to our customers about broader availability of these features at a future date.


• We’re releasing to a North American and English-only audience to start, while we scale content moderation to be complete in other languages and expand our servers globally.


• Once available and you have opted-in to the experience, you’ll have full access to Copilot. When you share Copilot components, your teammates will be able to see and edit the content in Copilot but won’t be able to Create new Copilot components or send refiners until they’ve opted-in through the experiments tab as well.

What can I use Copilot in Loop for?

There’s a ton of potential here. While we guide you towards writing requests with our examples, these should not limit how you use Copilot in Loop. With a little context and guidance, Copilot can be used for almost anything. For example, here are some things you can try:

• Spin up new content and tweak it – Copilot can help you draft a newsletter or come up with a list of ideas to get the ball rolling. Not quite, right? Don’t fret – you’re in the driver’s seat. Incorporate your voice and make direct edits.


• Blueprint a plan and roll with it – Not sure what your next move is? Have a vision, but working on a plan? Ask Copilot to outline some steps that you can use as scaffolding for your work.


• Play with tone and rework it – Trust us, we get email anxiety too. If you need to explore some options before getting more eyes on a draft – just use Copilot to sample different tones and help you rephrase content based on your intent.

Once Enabled, how do I use it?

• When enabled, you will be able to opt-in by going to the Settings and more button (…) at the top right, clicking on Experiments, and toggling the Copilot setting. If the toggle is disabled for you at the moment, please check back later. We are working hard to roll this out while maintaining strong performance and reliability metrics for existing users. We encourage feedback even if you can’t use the feature.


• Once enabled, you will be able to add a Copilot component from anywhere by typing “/” (slash) on the Loop canvas.

An image demonstrating the entry point for Copilot within the “/” menu.

Where can I learn more about Microsoft’s commitment to Responsible AI?

• Our efforts are guided by our AI principles and Responsible AI Standard and build on decades of research on grounding and privacy-preserving machine learning. Microsoft’s work on AI is reviewed for potential harms and mitigations by a multidisciplinary team of researchers, engineers, and policy experts. We use the Azure Content Moderation Stack across our services to monitor and filter harmful content. Technologies like, InterpretML and Fairlearn help to detect and correct data bias.


• Copilot in Loop builds on our existing commitments to data security and privacy in the enterprise. Copilot automatically inherits your organization’s security, compliance, and privacy policies for Microsoft 365. Data is managed in line with our current commitments. The large language models leveraged by Copilot are not trained on your tenant data.


• Finally, we have worked to design an experience that prioritizes human agency and puts the user in control. This includes noting limitations, and we encourage users to review, fact-check, and fine-tune content based on their own knowledge and judgment.

Jumpstart workspace

When you have a vision for a project, you just want to get rolling. It’s often hard, though, because the “stuff” that makes up a project is scattered. You have to switch between different applications, make connections across existing resources, and go through the manual process of aggregating all project-related collateral. All while breaking organizational siloes.

Jumpstart helps you set the foundation. It’s designed to help you quickly cherry-pick your starting materials from a set of AI-powered suggestions. Gather important content from SharePoint or OneDrive for Business into your workspace, all without leaving the context of Loop.

Based on the name of the workspace, we begin to surface an initial set of files. If you give Loop additional context by providing a set of keywords, we’ll cast a wider net and show more suggestions. Then, all you need to do is shuffle through the result tabs, select the files you want to pull in, and click Create. They’ll show up in your Loop workspace’s left navigation pane shortly after the workspace is created.

We’re hoping that this experience will empower you to make connections beyond a simple file search. With Jumpstart, you can bring materials into the workspace that are directly – or even tangentially – related. Who knows, it might help your team spark a lightbulb moment and add depth to your project.

An animated image demonstrating Jumpstart in action by adding Microsoft Word and Loop files to their workspace.

You can help us continue to build out this feature by leaving comments below or tagging #Jumpstart in your in-app feedback. How can our suggestions better serve your needs, even after workspace creation? What other kind of “stuff” would you want to pull into your workspace? We’re all ears. 

Jumpstart FAQ

How do I enable and use Jumpstart workspace?

• Enterprise customers can opt-in to Jumpstart through the experiments tab. After opting in, hit the “Add new workspace” (+) button from the main landing page in Loop to get started.

What kind of content can I pull into my workspace?

• Files that live in OneDrive for Business or SharePoint – from apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Loop. Really, anything that you have access to with your enterprise account. But it doesn’t have to stop there, let us know what else you’d like to pull in for an even richer experience.

Stay tuned – there’s a lot in store

We also wanted to share a sneak peek of some upcoming AI-powered features that will help improve the way you work together with others. Two of the biggest pain points we hear from you are how challenging it can be for your team to quickly come up-to-speed on what happened and decide what to do next. Endless notifications and fast-moving projects make it hard to quickly determine where your time is best spent.

In the next few months, Loop will help you make sense of everything that’s going on with new AI-powered summarization capabilities. Whether it’s returning to a project after that vacation, smoothly handing off work between teammates, or getting the high-level overview of a page, these new summarization experiences will help you and your team stay in sync and on track so you can dive back in with confidence. Be on the lookout for more details soon.

An image demonstrating features on desktop (left) and mobile (right) devices to help users save time and energy.

We’re excited about the path you’ve guided us to with AI in Loop – and we’d love your continued input along the way. Please be sure to keep an eye out for new features and let us know if you have any suggestions by using the #Copilot or #Jumpstart tag in your feedback, or simply leaving a comment in the comment section below. 

We can’t wait to see how you will use AI in Loop to uplevel your work!

Continue the conversation by joining us in the Microsoft 365 community! Want to share best practices or join community events? Become a member by “Joining” the Microsoft 365 community. For tips & tricks or to stay up to date on the latest news and announcements directly from the product teams, make sure to Follow or Subscribe to the Microsoft 365 Blog space!