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Microsoft Ending SharePoint Online Public Newsfeed This Summer

Microsoft plans to end the "native" SharePoint Online public newsfeed for Office 365 tenancies in June, and instead steer organizations toward Team News, Communication Sites or Yammer feeds for company posts.

Bill Baer, senior product marketing manager for SharePoint, described the coming change in a Friday announcement. The change will affect the "public newsfeed" used by organizations, which is also known as the "company feed." In June, the public newsfeed will become "read only" for organizations using it, which presumably means that it can be read, but not modified or updated.

Instead, Microsoft wants organizations to use other options like Team News, which is used for broadcasting "key events and accomplishments" with members of a team, according to Microsoft. A Communication Site is for sharing "news, reports, statuses and other information." Yammer is a chat-based service for improving "engagement with everyone in your organization," according to Microsoft.

Here's how Baer described change:

Beginning in June 2018, the company feed will be set to read-only for existing Tenants and the option to implement the Newsfeed capability will be removed for new Office Tenants. For customers using the company feed we recommend considering options such as Team News, Communication Sites, and/or Yammer.

Yammer is now available as a new Web Part for SharePoint Online users. Microsoft announced last month that the Web Part option for Yammer had reached "general availability" status, meaning it's ready for use by organizations.

Baer clarified that the June change doesn't affect the Site Feed feature. SharePoint Server users also aren't affected yet as "this change is currently limited to SharePoint Online in Office 365," he added.

Microsoft lists its overall SharePoint Online social communication features in this TechNet document. The document, though, doesn't describe Team News, Communication Site or Yammer feeds.

About the Author

Kurt Mackie is senior news producer for 1105 Media's Converge360 group.

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