Managed IT Services
Subscribe to Our Microsoft 365 Newsletter
Welcome to the Microsoft 365 newsletter sign-up page. Once a month, eMDTec sends New Jersey business owners, practice managers, and office administrators a plain-English rundown of what changed in Microsoft 365: Copilot updates, Teams tips, SharePoint and OneDrive guidance, and the security and compliance settings worth checking. Free, no vendor pitch, unsubscribe any time.
What Is Inside Each Microsoft 365 Newsletter
Microsoft ships hundreds of changes to Microsoft 365 every year, and most of them arrive with no announcement beyond a line in the admin center message board. Our Microsoft 365 newsletter reads those notices for you and keeps the handful that matter to a small or mid-sized business, then explains what to do about them.
- Microsoft 365 Copilot updates: new Copilot features in Word, Excel, Outlook, and Teams, licensing changes, and the permissions clean-up you should do before turning it on.
- Microsoft Teams tips: channels, meetings, phone system features, and the settings that stop Teams from becoming a second inbox.
- SharePoint and OneDrive guidance: file sharing, retention, external access, and how to keep the file server migration from turning into a mess.
- M365 security and compliance: Defender alerts, MFA and conditional access changes, retiring authentication methods, and what HIPAA, FTC Safeguards, and SEC-regulated firms need to review.
- Monthly business tech insights: one short section on what we are seeing across New Jersey IT services clients, from phishing trends to hardware lifecycles.
Get Free M365 Updates Every Month
Enter your name and business email and the next edition of the Microsoft 365 newsletter lands in your inbox. One email a month, no daily drips, and you can unsubscribe with one click. We never share or sell your address; see our privacy policy.
Why a Managed Service Provider Writes This Newsletter
eMDTec is a managed service provider and Microsoft Cloud Solution Provider based in Verona, NJ. We have delivered IT support and consulting to New Jersey businesses since 2002, and Microsoft 365 is the cloud productivity platform almost every one of our clients runs on. The Microsoft 365 newsletter grew out of the monthly notes we were already sending clients; it is the same content, opened up to any business that wants it.
Written for Business Owners, Not Administrators
Microsoft’s own release notes are written for IT administrators. Ours are written for the person who has to decide whether a change matters, what it costs, and who on the team needs to know. When something does require an administrator, we say so and describe what to ask for.
Microsoft 365 Tips for Businesses in Regulated Industries
A large share of our clients are medical practices, law firms, and accounting and financial services firms. Every Microsoft 365 newsletter edition flags the changes that touch HIPAA, the FTC Safeguards Rule, or SEC and FINRA expectations, because an unreviewed default setting in SharePoint or Teams can quietly become a compliance finding.
SMB Cloud Management You Can Act On
Each edition ends with a short “do this month” list: a setting to check, a feature to switch on, or a license to review before renewal. Most take an office manager or your IT provider ten minutes, and they add up to a tenant that is tidier and safer than it was a year ago.
Recent Microsoft 365 Newsletter Topics
A sample of what subscribers have received recently. Many editions are also published on our blog under the Microsoft category.
- Microsoft 365 Updates May 2026: What Your Business Needs to Know
- 5 Microsoft 365 Features You’re Probably Not Using Yet
- How to Prepare Microsoft 365 Permissions Before a Copilot Rollout
- What Is Microsoft Intune? A Plain-English Guide
- Passkey Migration and What It Means for Your Microsoft Accounts
If you want help putting any of it into practice, our Microsoft 365 Copilot services and managed IT services pages describe how we support Microsoft 365 for New Jersey businesses day to day.
Five Microsoft 365 Settings Worth Checking Before the Next Edition Arrives
You do not have to wait for the next Microsoft 365 newsletter to tighten things up. These are the five items we find unreviewed in most tenants we inherit, and each one takes an administrator less than fifteen minutes.
1. Multi-Factor Authentication for Every Account, Including Shared Mailboxes
Security defaults or conditional access should require MFA for every user, and shared mailboxes should have sign-in blocked outright. Cyber insurers now ask for this on nearly every renewal questionnaire, and it remains the single most effective control against business email compromise.
2. External Sharing in SharePoint and OneDrive
The default in many tenants allows “anyone with the link” sharing. Tightening that to “new and existing guests” and setting link expiration keeps client files from circulating indefinitely, which matters for HIPAA-covered practices and law firms handling privileged material.
3. Retention and Litigation Hold
Deleted mail and files disappear for good after the default retention window unless a policy says otherwise. Regulated firms often need seven years; a retention policy in Microsoft Purview costs nothing extra on Business Premium and takes an afternoon to configure.
4. Copilot Readiness: Permissions Before Licenses
Microsoft 365 Copilot surfaces anything a user already has access to. If a payroll spreadsheet is sitting in a SharePoint site everyone can read, Copilot will happily summarize it. Run an oversharing review before assigning the first Copilot license, not after.
5. Licenses Nobody Is Using
Departed employees, test accounts, and duplicate subscriptions add up. A quarterly look at the admin center’s usage reports usually finds a few licenses to reclaim, which is often enough to fund the Business Premium upgrade that brings Defender and Intune with it.
How New Jersey Businesses Use the Newsletter
Practice managers forward the compliance section to their privacy officer. Office managers at law firms use the Teams tips to onboard new staff. Owners of professional services firms read the “do this month” list and send it to their IT provider, whether that provider is eMDTec or someone else. If you run a business in Essex, Passaic, Morris, or Bergen County and Microsoft 365 is where your work lives, the Microsoft 365 newsletter is the shortest route to staying current without adding a research task to your week. Subscribe above, and if you would rather have someone handle all of this for you, our IT help desk and cloud migration teams are a phone call away.
Microsoft 365 Newsletter FAQs
How often is the Microsoft 365 newsletter sent?
Once a month, usually in the first week, after Microsoft’s monthly release notes and Patch Tuesday have landed. If something urgent happens between editions, such as a zero-day affecting Exchange Online, we may send a short alert rather than waiting.
Is it really free, and will you sell my email address?
It is free and we do not sell, rent, or share subscriber addresses. The list is used for the newsletter and the occasional security alert only. You can unsubscribe from any edition with one click.
Do I need to be an eMDTec client to subscribe?
No. The Microsoft 365 newsletter is written for any New Jersey business that runs on Microsoft 365, whether you have an internal IT person, another provider, or nobody at all.
Is it technical?
It is written for business owners and office managers first. Where a change needs an administrator, we explain what to ask for in plain language. If you want the deeper technical detail, each item links to Microsoft’s own documentation at the Microsoft 365 blog or Microsoft Learn.
Ready for Free M365 Updates Without the Research?
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