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

SharePoint Online OL issues for webparts available in SharePoint Online

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.

Canadian French Dictate

Description

• Canadian French Dictate is a voice-to-text author that is used to create documents.
• In this case, it is used to create a Word document via the web version of Word.
• The French (Canada) Dictate feature does not work on the Web version of MS Word. Despite having all settings activated, the feature still does not work. This issue is concerning as it affects both Accessibility and Official Languages obligations.

Status and Update

• The issue was resolved

MS Project not Available in Canadian French (FR-CA)

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).

Microsoft Visio not Available in Canadian French (FR-CA)

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).

System-generated E-mails

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.
• Resolved by setting and synchronizing the preferred Language AD attribute.

Status and Updates

• The Play has been completed and added to Playbook: System Generated Email.

Multiple Audio Streams for Translation

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 issue was resolved

Link: Language Interpretation in a Teams Meeting

Audio-Conferencing Dial-in Message

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.

Status and Updates

• The issue was resolved 

Link to Play: Audio-Conferencing Dial-in Message

Contact Us

DCC.Accessibility (SSC),dcc.accessibility-accessibilite.cnn@ssc-spc.gc.ca

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