Allow Tenant Admins to Control New Features being Enabled/Disabled by Default
Tenant administrators should have the ability to specify whether or not new features such as Teams, Sway, etc. are enabled by default within their tenants. Just like there's the ability to set a tenant to receive First Release, Admins should be able to specify how changes are introduced to their environment. It's great that there are Powershell commands to turn features on/off but it would be much easier to either set these new features to be off by default, or enable Admins to enable when organizations are ready to absorb those changes. Functionality like Teams is absolutely fantastic, but without the right change management planning it becomes confusing for users. For Tenant Admins that either ignore announcements of new features, or are unavailable to turn them off when they become available - this is an appropriate solution to enable organizations to effectively manage how they are consuming Office 365.

67 comments
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Anonymous commented
We really would love this feature - and it's a pitty, that there seems to be no feedback at all from Microsoft.
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Anonymous commented
This thread is already 3 years old. This type of change would be relatively easy from a coding perspective. This tells me Microsoft really doesn't care how challenging they are making it for administrators.
This is a no-brainer Microsoft. What you're doing is malicious because you're adding features that should be disabled in most environments, but it's auto-enabled when added.
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Anonymous commented
We should be able to control what app is available in the organization on a global level; going into each user turning off a license is ridiculous - we want our users to only have access to email and office apps.
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Jijo commented
I just want to implement policy to limit the number of recipients for a single email. Users are now able to send mail to 500 recipients in a single mail.
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Anonymous commented
Our users are hyper-sensitive to suspicious activity and having features enabled by default that email them, notify them, modify their settings causes constant false positives. At the very least, turn the features off by default for everyone except global admins so we can test it out before deciding the business value for our company.
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Anonymous commented
Can we please get an update on this request? We need this.
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SME commented
Echoing what so many others have said - show us you care about the companies you serve, and *their* requirements. We shouldn't have to even ask for this ability, or others like it.
Especially when features are turned on to force IT's hand (and we have been told this by assorted Product Groups) and make them look like the "bad guys" when it then gets turned off for solid business reasons - how is that a healthy partnership? -
Anonymous commented
I was more then suprised that we've to ask Microsoft for proper change management...
However, could be that I'm too conservative since I was praying ITIL all the time to my guys. -
Darren commented
This is an important feature - we use several licensing groups across multiple licence types (E3, E5, etc) to enable/disable features. Every time MS drops a new feature we have to go and disable it in every group until we can properly look at it.
This is really a no-brainer.
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Wayne commented
Turning on MyAnalytics by default resulted in multiple users in my tenant losing access to Office365 - we are still migrating from on-prem to exo - users without an ExO licence ended up with conflicting service plans.
Sheer stupidity MS
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Roseanne Jones commented
Agreed, why is this not the default? At least for those in a more sensitive environment such as Education where we may not know the impact of having a service turned on until it's discovered after the fact, and could be made available to students (cringe) with potentially harmful impacts.
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David Gould commented
Like this idea. Default off, admin notification and then the ability to turn it on to all at a later stage. This would make my role easier to plan forward!!
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Caleb commented
What... IT needs control of the applications in their environment... nonsense.
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Anonymous commented
I agree. If the user sees the app before we do and management has not approved its use or has not assessed how to make the product compliant, it's hard to take these features away or even to restrict the app the be compliant with company policy.
It just invites unnecessary political tension or the idea that "IT always says no," then we get shadow IT. It's like trying to put the genie back in the bottle.
These are great features, but they should allow the admin and governance time to see how to implement it in compliance with the company policy.
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Bill Blais commented
Totally agree.
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SDADM commented
Yes, yes, a thousand times YES!
Flipping the switch to ON for some new feature (as was done for Video, O365 Groups, and more) is a bad enough idea, but those applications by default were made available to ALL users with no restrictions.
We'd much prefer to set our own pilot teams and have them test so we understand all aspects of the new features, can set policies on usage and naming, can set roles and permissions, can prepare our help desk, can host training, etc. prior to rollout.
I'd imagine any organization would want the same, but it's far worse when you do this to your government clients, Microsoft.
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Alex commented
Yes, this!
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Anonymous commented
Really MS, do you just ignore something so simple? As others have said, quit forcing changes on local admin without giving us some control and turn off the freaking LIKE button. Email is not Social Media, there is business here not chat rooms.
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Anonymous commented
Bump - Yes please.
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Bill Blais commented
Is there really no official response to this yet (nearly a year and more than 800 votes later)? It seems like a no-brainer 'switch' to add, but maybe there's more to it (to play devil's advocate)? Either way, some response/explanation would be great.