M365 Changelog: Announcing Tenant-level Organizational Theme Capabilities for Global Admins

MC243041 – Updated April 02, 2021: Microsoft updated the post for clarity. Additionally, Microsoft updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Organizational Theme provides you the ability to define multiple themes within your organization, from the Microsoft 365 global admin center, using Microsoft 365 Groups. Each theme can be further customized by specifying mobile-specific and alternate dark mode logo experiences.

Key points

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 70551. 
• Timing:
  • Targeted release: will begin rolling this out in mid-April (previously early April) and expect to complete rollout by early May (previously mid-April).
  • Standard release: will begin rolling this out in mid-May (previously late April) and expect to complete rollout by mid-June 2021.
• Roll-out: tenant level
• Control type: admin control
• Action: review and assess

How this will affect your organization

Previously, you could only set a default theme which applied to everyone within your organization. Organizational Theme gives you the ability to create up to five custom themes for your tenant where each theme can be assigned to a specific Microsoft 365 group. Additionally Organizational Theme introduces support for:

• Specifying mobile-specific company logo(s) optimized for smaller screens
• Enabling alternate logo(s) for dark mode

Users will continue to have the same theme experience as before if you make no further changes. If an organizational theme has already been defined, it will now show up as the default theme. Editing the default theme or adding a new custom theme now provides the capability to specify up to four separate logos optimized for alternate and mobile scenarios.

Note: It is important to remember that the navigation bar background image will be retired and the ability to upload a new background image will no longer be supported. Upon saving any modifications made to a new custom theme, the background image will be permanently removed and users will no longer be able to see it.

What do you need to do to prepare

Microsoft will be updating this Message Center post with further instructional information in a help article for admins to follow in order to set up custom themes that can be assigned to specific Microsoft 365 groups around mid-March.

Each custom theme may be assigned to up to five separate Microsoft 365 groups (for more information on how to create a Microsoft 365 group, view this resource).