Office 365 – New Feature - First Release

Microsoft has been rolling out a new feature called ‘First Release’. This feature allows administrators of Office 365 to enable their organisation to receive a collection of Office 365 feature updates and enhancements the instant they are released from Microsoft.

From Microsoft:

First Release gives customers who opt-in the opportunity to get a small selection of significant enhancements to the Office 365 user experience, SharePoint Online, and Exchange Online first. If you opt-in to First Release, you will receive new qualifying feature updates first, a minimum of two weeks before customers in our standard release group.

By default, all Office 365 customers are part of the standard release group. If you stay within this group i.e. don’t enable First Release option, then you will receive the new feature updates a minimum of two weeks after availability in First Release.

To enable First Release to your Office 365 subscription:

1.  Log into the portal admin at portal.microsoftonline.com
2.  Go to Admin > Service settings > Updates

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