Microsoft 365 Admin Center Now Shows Windows Notices -- Redmondmag.com

Microsoft 365 Admin Center Now Shows Windows Notices

By Kurt Mackie
04/29/2022

IT pros using the Microsoft 365 Admin Center management portal can now get Message Center notifications about the Windows operating system, Microsoft announced on Thursday.

Message Center notifications are notices from Microsoft about software and services issues, including information about releases and deprecated products. The notifications just get seen by IT pros with the requisite permissions, but most admin roles qualify, according to this Microsoft document.

The appearance of Windows Message Center notices in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center portal seems like a given, but it's actually a "brand-new new capability," Microsoft noted in the announcement. However, it's just available to organizations with E3 or E5 (and A3 or A5) types of subscriptions.

Eligible organizations can get the Windows Message Center notices by e-mail as well, as demonstrated in this Microsoft setup video. Microsoft offers its e-mailed Windows notices as weekly digests (arriving on Mondays) and as daily alerts.

For new users, Microsoft plans to put IT pros with Global Admin or Message Center Privacy Reader role permissions on four-week trial subscriptions to Message Center weekly digest mailings about Windows. When that trial ends, those users can opt to continue the subscriptions, if wanted.

Microsoft explained that it tweaked the "service communications API in Microsoft Graph" to enable the Windows Message Center functionality in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center portal. Typically, that API gets used "to access the health status and message center posts about Microsoft cloud services," specifically Microsoft 365 and Dynamics 365, according to this Microsoft "Overview" document.

The added Microsoft Graph API support also permits IT pros to leverage various software tools and create response workflows for their departments concerning Windows issues.

"Now with this new access, you can use your organization's apps to enable custom workflows for administrators to review, assign, and triage communications about Windows from the message center," the announcement indicated.

About the Author

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

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