Get Early updates before public release in Office 365

This article explains how to become the first user to get the latest updates from Office 365 environment

Introduction:

Day by day and week by week Office 365 team adding new features and updating the existing items to improve the performance, usability and more…  For example, New Responsive Admin Center, SharePoint modern UI experience etc…

To view the latest & upcoming updates:  https://fasttrack.microsoft.com/roadmap

Different User Releases:

At present, office 365 team releasing the updates for two type of users,

  • Standard Users and
  • First Release Users.

First release users will get the updates before the standard users, but by default all users are places under Standard user category. There is manual intention required to enable that first release feature.

Enable First Release preference:

  • Sign in to Office 365 Admin center
  • Click on Settings and then Organization Profile. Organization Profile page allows the admin to view and manage the basic organization details, customize the theme experience and release preferences.

    Office 365 Admin Center
    Fig 1: Office 365 Admin Center
  • Edit Release preference settings
    • In Release preference box, shows the current release setting. Click on Edit button to open a popup page to update the preferences.
    Organization Profile
    Fig 2: Organization Profile
    • Choose “First release for everyone” to get latest updates for all users in organization
    • Choose “First release for selected users” to get updates for selected users in organization. And then select users from the people picker.
      Note: To revert back the option, choose “Standard release”
  • After choosing the option, Click “Next” button and it redirects to confirmation page.

    Release Preferences - First release for everyone
    Fig 3: Release Preferences – First release for everyone
  • Click “Yes” button to update the release preference.

    Release Preferences - Confirmation
    Fig 4: Release Preferences – Confirmation
  • After getting the confirmation of update. Click “Close” button to close the popup.

    Release Preferences - Success Message
    Fig 5: Release Preferences – Success Message
  • Now, the Organization Profile page shows the updated setting sin Release Preference box.

Conclusion:

By enabling this preference, first release users can experience the latest updates before the normal users gets hands-on that feature in office 365.

Shantha Kumar
Shantha Kumar
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