M365 Changelog: Introducing At a glance summaries in sharing e-mails for Word documents

MC227295 – Updated December 10, 2020: We have updated the post with additional information. Thank you for your patience.

Sharing e-mails for Word files will soon include the estimated time to read for document as well as its key points, as announced at Ignite.

Key points

• Microsoft 365 Roadmap 66189
• Timing:
  • Standard release: beginning early January through late March 2021
• Roll-out: tenant level
• Control type: admin control 
• Action: review and assess by January 2, 2021

How this will affect your organization

When users share Word files, the sharing e-mail will include information about the estimated time it will take a user to read the document as well as a list of the key points in the document.

Note that files that have been marked as sensitive by Data Loss Prevention will not include this information. 

What you need to do to prepare

Admins who do not want this new functionality can disable it using the SharePoint Online Management Shell before the feature is available on January 2, 2021.

Once connected, you should run Set-SPOTenant – IncludeAtAGlanceInShareEmails $false.

You might want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.