Top 5 Trends Cadence is Excited About from the Microsoft 365 Conference

Hot on the heels of the 2025 Microsoft 365 Conference in Las Vegas last week, Cadence Solutions is excited to share our top takeaways, including some interesting innovations that will be making their way into the Microsoft 365 platform.

File Sharing Changes across all applications in M365 are coming, aimed at improving functionality and ensuring users can keep their content secure, by default. We’re looking forward to the following changes:

·         Easier, sleeker management of permissions

·         Greater control with a simplified interface

·         Control over who can change permissions on files

·         Copying the URL of a document directly with permissions honoured

·         Passwords on generated links

The continued growth of Copilot and its agents across different applications in M365 was confirmed, along with a renewed commitment to support it accordingly with ongoing investment in the tool in the coming years. Agents in SharePoint were showcased in the keynote, with a multitude of sessions outlining different uses for Copilot in day-to-day operations. Cadence’s own Jordan Uytterhagen delivered a session with Microsoft's Jennifer Burdett to discuss Security Copilot and the value it can bring to Purview's compliance platform while helping security analysts and information managers parse through large volumes of alerts in the portal.

The growing emphasis on AI identifies the need for strong foundations in governance, security, and compliance. As such, it further drives home the importance of rolling out various Purview modules and being intentional with SharePoint site design. Throughout the conference, the value of using Information Protection and Data Loss Prevention modules in Purview to restrict and protect your most sensitive data was made clear, in addition to having the Records Management module to get rid of redundant data that agents may have access to. In addition, it was emphasized that structuring SharePoint sites appropriately enables agents to access what they should be able to and protect what they shouldn't be able to.

A new solution for managing agreements in SharePoint was unveiled, which includes an end-to-end contract management system with the support for eSignature. On the roadmap is functionality beyond SharePoint eSignature, with DocuSign integration on the horizon. This updated take on contract creation with controllable sections in templates to in-place signatures captured our team’s imagination, and you can bet we'll be looking into this further. Stay tuned for what we cook up!

Oilers vs. Knights – Ok, we know it’s not directly related to the M365 conference, but when your hometown hockey team plays in the same city as the conference you’re attending, you obviously take the opportunity to go and cheer on the boys. And we’re ecstatic to report our Edmonton Oilers beat the Las Vegas Golden Knights in game one of the series. GO, OILERS, GO!