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.

64 comments
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Caleb commented
Please Microsoft.... listen to this.
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Kevin H commented
100% This.
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Gavin Watt commented
Definitely a yes!
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Anonymous commented
Got to have this, so disruptive having features released that we haven't yet evaluated or tested or understood the full implications of before they are already in the wild.
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Lucy Pearson commented
By being able to control these features organisations would be able to have proper change management by developing guidance, governance and communications around new features, creating a much better user experience and improve adoption of O365 generally. A no brainer really.
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Jon Woodley commented
As others have said; should have been like this from day 1.
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Anonymous commented
Yes please!
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Ian Swift commented
I have yet to hear/read a single person who thinks having new features turned on by default is a good thing. We have change and release management procedures for a reason. We need to be in control of if and when anything is released to our users.
Microsoft - please listen to what many, many people are telling you about this. -
Matthew Slowe commented
Should have been there from the start. Yes please…
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Andy Swiffin commented
Yes please! 1000 times YES!
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Matt commented
Please add this feature
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ANeville commented
I'll echo Joshua Barnett
'If a new service is introduced under a license it should be disabled by default' -
anikke commented
Oh to be able to give this a year's worth of votes! The "on by default" releases have been and continue to be exceptionally disruptive. We operate in an environment where every new service must be assessed on a range of criteria, not the least of which is security. Many of the new services have far too few controls to ever be made available in our environment. Case in point is Sway, but there are others. For those that can be released, there should be time for planning and implementation, in our own timeframe.
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Pauli commented
Desperately needed. Our customers' IT teams are getting really frustrated by changes that they can't control; and users baffled when their critically important tools change without warning. SME's can not afford the people that it would take to match the Microsoft roll-out schedule, continuously tracking roadmaps, previewing or testing changes, updating customisations and educating users.
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Vinod commented
Yes the control should be in place for admins prior to rollout to tenant
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Joshua Barnett commented
Absolutely.
If a new service is introduced under a license it should be disabled by default. -
Ananth Kumar commented
Yes I request that every time a service plan is introduced under a license it should be set as disabled and an administrator with his script would assign or not assign for users.
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Vikkas Mittal commented
Yes if get that feature enable for Tenant admin because company can easily manage O365 tenant environment and enable/disable feature as per company requirement or policy.
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Faran commented
Definitely YES. Tenant Admins should have controls to enable\disable new features.
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Anonymous commented
Absolutely the preference for larger tenants is to manage the process of a feature rollout, not to automatically enable features that directly impact user processes. Using the example of Teams, it is immediately evident that you can create "duplicate" team names that a users owns and/or is a member. The Teams client can show the same team names and the GAL show the same Display Name for the associated O365 Group. For a larger tenant with 15,000 plus licensed accounts the exponential growth and duplication of objects and names within the directory as users test and play with the functions can turn a benefit to a hindrance within several weeks. WIthout proper planning, guidance, and training of a new feature it creates a chaotic environment for users and IT. While smaller tenant user bases makes for a new and exciting challenge of new features, larger more established infrastructures need the ability to balance multiple hurdles such as Identity Management processes (MIM, ADFS, AD Connect) together with Active Directory, Azure, Exchange, Office 365 to lifecycle an account. Creating something new is only one step for an organization. Companies must plan to be in business for 5 or 10 years and develop a life cycle for objects to create, manage, and potentially delete accounts, groups, teams, etc.