Microsoft is getting rid of as many as six Windows features this year. However, there are reasons to be excited if you're a Microsoft 365 subscriber, as many new features are coming to help you do more.

Continuing its tradition of giving an overview of what's coming next to Microsoft 365, the software giant updated its roadmap page with lots of noteworthy changes that are going to be introduced in the next few months. And just like every week, we're at it again, unpacking and explaining all the important upcoming highlighting Microsoft 365 capabilities.

Copilot for Microsoft 365: new ways to create documents, generating multiple formula columns at once, and more

Web links will reference files in Word

We already know that Microsoft is going to introduce the ability to reference PDF and Excel files while creating content as early as next month. Additionally, the company is also planning to add another handy feature to Copilot in Microsoft 365 next month in the form of allowing the use of weblinks to reference files in Word (Feature ID: 367083).

What this means is that, instead of searching for it in the file reference menu, you'll be able to simply copy and paste the link of the file into the Draft with Copilot in Word to quickly insert references into documents. You can make your documents more comprehensive by inserting those references, which can be a PDF or a chart.

Copilot will create documents based on different files

Microsoft is working on another major addition to the Referencing file feature in Copilot for Microsoft 365 on iOS. Instead of creating a document from scratch, iOS users will ask Copilot to take inspiration from three different files to create a new document (Feature ID: 388859).

You can type "/" followed by the name of the file you'd like to use in "Compose". If it's three different files, you'll need to follow the same step three different times in order to let Copilot create documents based on existing materials. Alternatively, you can simply select Reference a file and choose up to three files in Draft with Copilot and the chatbot will take care of the rest.

Generate multiple formula columns from a single prompt

Copilot for Microsoft 365 will get a number of changes this month, too. One of them that Microsoft highlighted on its roadmap page last week is the ability to generate multiple formula column suggestions at once using a single prompt (Feature ID: 391638).

This feature can be useful in multiple scenarios. For example, if you want to organize customers' names and email addresses for a promotional email campaign, all it takes is type a prompt and Copilot in Excel will generate formulas to split the names into first and last names as well as extract email addresses. This way, you can instantly create multiple columns comprising properly organized data.

Copilot in Excel will also allow users to use formulas such as XLOOKUP and SUMIF to 'create formula columns to bring together data from multiple tables' (Feature ID: 391637). You'll see all of this happening in Excel on your Macs and PCs by the end of this month.

Microsoft Teams: private chat for webinar organizers, new privacy feature for webinar and town hall attendees

Webinar and town hall organizers can block attendee emails

For those who organize town halls and webinars, you'll now be able to take care of the privacy of the participants by blocking the sending of attendee emails from Microsoft Teams (Feature ID: 392826 & 392227). This will be available to all Teams users on PCs and Macs from this month.

Private chat for organizers and presenters in webinars

For organizers, co-organizers, and presenters of webinars, Microsoft Teams on desktop on Mac will offer a chat option to communicate privately before, during, and after the event (Feature ID: 392328). A separate chat option comes in handy in various scenarios, including when organizers and presenters need a quick discussion to address a technical issue without distracting the attendees. Microsoft plans to bring this to Teams in June this year.

Release timelines are subject to change

Release timelines mentioned in the roadmap website should be taken with a pinch of salt. While all the features in this week's weekly digest are expected to arrive in the next couple of months, don't be surprised if you don't see some of them rolling out to Microsoft 365 users on time.