M365/test4
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Purpose
To provide detailed updates on Microsoft 365 (M365) Official Languages Issues, and on how they are addressed to meet the Official Language requirements by the Government of Canada.
Context
The Government of Canada is committed to providing a workplace that respects both official languages at all times, and to maintaining a qualified and competent workforce that is capable of delivering services of the highest quality to its internal and external clients in the language of their choice. The Official Languages Act dictates that English and French are the languages of work in federal institutions. By ensuring that M365 Products respect the Official Languages Act, the SSC Strategic Business Planning & Oversight (SBPO)-User Experience (UX) team is assisting the federal institutions:
- to respect the language-of-work rights of employees, and
- to create and maintain a workplace that is conducive to the use of English and French in bilingual regions, for example by holding bilingual meetings.
By ensuring that M365 Products align with the Official Languages Act, SBPO the UX team is contributing to the Government of Canada’s duty to accommodate and maintain an inclusive and linguistically barrier-free environment in the workplace. Therefore, tracking the M365 Official Languages Issues and resolving them is important as those issues can easily turn into high visibility cases.
Official Languages Issues Reports
Teams Meeting Invitations - Outlook Add-In
Description
- Invitations sent to participants in Outlook by a meeting organizer are written in only one language, the organizer’s preferred language.
- Adding a bilingual message was tested using existing Teams features as a potential stop gap; long term solution is to deploy a new Teams plug-in for Outlook that supports bilingual meeting invitations. Using a bilingual logo was tested; however, the solution is not viable as it would break current security controls (i.e., allowing automatic download of images from a URL).
Status and Updates
- The SSC Official Languages team has reviewed and approved the requested French corrections to ensure they align with the Official Languages Act.
- Microsoft created a formal Design Change Request (DCR) still open and in progress
- Only two remaining features to be corrected in the french version of the Teams invitation: changing the City agglomeration from Ottawa Hull to Ottawa-Gatineau and change No to Numéro.
- Microsoft is working on the issue
Link to Play: Official Languages Outlook meeting invitations.
Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Notifications
Description
- Partners can define M365 policies that prevent people from sharing sensitive information when using M365 products such as Teams, Email, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, OneDrive, and SharePoint.
- Currently, notifications to users about data loss prevention are unilingual.
Status and Updates
- Microsoft is working on the issue
- Microsoft confirmed that the issue is classified as a Design Change Request.
Group Access Review Notification
Description
- When renewing guest users, it is not possible to change the notification text to French, nor change the content to be bilingual. The Access Review Notification email is sent to the main tenant’s language choice only and not to the user’s choice of language.
- The Access Review Notification email contains two links: Perform an Access Review and Azure Active Directory Access Review. When clicking on either link, it will open in the Edge browser in the language choice that was set by the user. The message is not bilingual.
Status and Updates
Microsoft resolved the issue. However, the resolved option is an add-on under Microsoft Entra Identity Governance which is not available under E5 licences. SSC is still in discussion with Microsoft for requesting the private preview environment be accessible with E5 license, and be able to do the testing and confirm the resolution.
Risk
The Group Access Review Notification is available only in English regardless of the fact the user has the settings in French.
Outlook Scheduling Pool
Description
Two components of Scheduling Poll do not translate in French. Even if all settings are in French on the computer. When in French when we look to have the “HOLD” time secure in the calendar, this part is not translated into French and appears in the calendar. When a participant is voting, the organizer is getting the email in Outlook in English
Status and Updates
- Microsoft is working on the issue
- Microsoft confirmed that the issue is classified as a Design Change Request.
Microsoft Teams Bookings
Description
- In the Teams Bookings App, a calendar page can only be made available in either English or French, not giving the user the option to choose both.
- A minimum of two languages should be set on the Bookings page, allowing the recipient to toggle to the Official language of their choice.
- The current workaround is to create separate calendars (one in French, one in English) and to send two separate links to the recipient.
- The names of the Bookings titles, descriptions, and service titles can be changed to reflect both the English and the French languages. However, toggling between English and French is not possible for the hard-coded titles, such as SELECT A SERVICE, SELECT STAFF, TIME, ADD YOUR DETAILS.
Status and Updates
- Microsoft is working on the issue
- Microsoft confirmed that the issue is classified as a Design Change Request.
Teams Webinar
Description
Even if the system is set to French, once you register to a Team webinar, you get the confirmation email in English.
Status and Updates
- Microsoft is working on the issue
- Microsoft confirmed that the issue is classified as a Design Change Request.
Translation of Captions
Description
When using only the captions, if a participant says obscenities, the caption are being obscured by asterisks but.... if using the translation service, they are translated with real words in the language chosen by any participants and do not appear as *****. Any **** should be translated in ****. We understand that the feature is not perfect and can be impacted by other components such as the clarity of the speaker but to get these captured words being translated can lead to embarrassment.
Status and Updates
- Microsoft is working on the issue
- Microsoft confirmed that the issue is classified as a Design Change Request.
Microsoft Yammer Missing the Bilingual E-mail Notification
Description
Yammer is fully bilingual, except for the notification sent via email or Teams.
Status and Updates
- Microsoft is working on the issue
- Microsoft confirmed that the issue is classified as a Design Change Request.
Archived Official Languages Issues
Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR)
Description
- Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) interface does not allow users to choose the language of their choice. Users must log out for them to be able choose their language of choice.
Status and Updates
- Microsoft resolved the issue by enabling a bilingual interface
Description
Communication site was available in English and in French. After building the English page, the French page has been created as well. Some webparts could not be used as they do not translate in French: - Countdown Timer (Days, hours, seconds are written in English only; - Weather (Sunny, rain, etc. are written in English only); - World Clock (AM, PM, days are written in English only); - Events (Many components are available only in English).
Status and Updates
Microsoft resolved the issue.
MS Project not Available in Canadian French (FR-CA) - Closed
Description
- MS Project is not available in Canadian French (FR-CA).
Status and Updates
- Ticket is closed.
- Microsoft confirmed that MS Project is only available in France French (FR-FR).
- DCC-UX opened a ticket with Microsoft requesting that a Canadian French version be created.
- The MS Product team confirmed that the request cannot be accepted. Microsoft is putting their effort into project.microsoft.com.
- Microsoft closed the ticket.
Microsoft Visio not Available in Canadian French (FR-CA) - Closed
Description
- MS Visio is not available in Canadian French (FR-CA).
Status and Updates
- Ticket is closed.
- Microsoft confirmed that no further investment will be done on Visio. They are fully focused on project on the Web (project.Microsoft.com)
- Microsoft confirmed that MS Visio is only available in France French (FR-FR).
- DCC-UX opened a ticket with Microsoft requesting that a Canadian French version be created.
- Microsoft Product Groups team has rejected the request to create the Canadian French version on their product.
- Microsoft offered a workaround of an FR-FR option that is set when selecting French (Canada).
System-generated E-mails - Closed
Description
- Portal language and system generated emails are based on the users’ preferred language as set in Active Directory (AD).
- Departments must populate this field for all their users in order to see this change take effect.
- SSC is offering guidance and assistance to any department requiring it; some partners, such as ESDC, who use the preferred language field for other purposes, will need additional support from Directory Services.
- Resolved by setting and synchronizing the preferred Language AD attribute. Working with TBS to add to guardrails. CIO Communications are being developed.
Status and Updates
- DCC UX instructed SSC CIO Communication to remove Teams Meeting Invitation-Outlook Add-in from the CIO Communique.
- The CIO Communique will include the System Generated Emails and the Audio-Conferencing Dial-in.
- The Play has been completed and added to Playbook: System Generated Email.
Teams Meeting French Canadian Captioning and Subtitles - Closed
Description
- Coming soon
Status and Updates
- Live Captioning in Teams meetings is available in preview mode, English-only. This feature can be disabled or used in limited state by departments until it is production-ready.
- Captioning does not support switching between spoken languages; DCC is sharing requirements with Microsoft product engineers.
- SSC has rolled out this feature launched by MS in August 2021.
Multiple Audio Streams for Translation - Closed
Description
- Multiple Audio Streams is a built-in feature in Teams meetings that would allow human interpreters join a meeting to translate into a specific language and use an audio channel, and allow attendees to subscribe to a specific audio channel for listening and speaking in their language of choice.
Status and Updates
- The feature is now available to the general public and a CIO Communique will be sent
- Link: Language Interpretation in a Teams Meeting
- No configuration required to be done by M365 General Admins
- No Play is required in Playbook
Audio-Conferencing Dial-in Message - Closed
Description
- Users connecting to Teams meetings hear an English message, and after a long pause, have the option to choose their preferred language, and then can receive all prompts in French.
- Dial-in service is being changed to give a language selection prompt first, but departments will need to ensure they are using a dedicated phone bridge, not a shared phone number. Two numbers are required, one for English and another for French.
Status and Updates
- DCC-UX instructed SSC CIO Communication to remove Teams Meeting Invitation-Outlook Add-in from the CIO Communique.
- The CIO Communique will include the System Generated Emails and the Audio-Conferencing Dial-in.
- Release update is complete and CIO communication now ready to be sent.
- Link to Play: Audio-Conferencing Dial-in Message
MS Teams Auto-correct and Auto-detect - Closed
Description
- Coming soon
Status and Updates
- Spellchecking across multiple languages was originally rolled out to Teams Desktop App on Windows, this was later rolled back so the feature can be improved upon. The feature is still available on some tenants but not always consistently functioning.
- Fix is saturating successfully throughout the impacted environments, MS is continuing to monitor progression. Deployment remains on track.
- MS continues to verify new functionality.
- New MS ticket opened to verify fix works as designed. MS continues to verify new functionality.
Contact Us
DCC.Accessibility (SSC),dcc.accessibility-accessibilite.cnn@ssc-spc.gc.ca
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