MC765810 - Microsoft Whiteboard: @mentions in comments

Updated June 28, 2024: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

Microsoft Whiteboard will provide the ability to @mention users from within a comment. 

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap IDs 164888 and 164889.

When this will happen:

Worldwide: We will begin rolling out in late September 2024 (previously mid-June) and expect to complete by mid-October 2024 (previously early July). 

How this will affect your organization:

When using Microsoft Whiteboard, users will be able to @mention other users within their tenant inside of a comment. The flow will look and feel similar to other Microsoft Office applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The user will type an @ symbol followed by the name of the user they would like to @mention in the text of a comment.  

If the @mentioned user is not actively using Whiteboard then they will be sent a notification via email and via the Microsoft Outlook notification bell. Inside of Whiteboard, the @mentioned user will see a blue @mention badge on the comment in which they are mentioned.  

Additional things to note: 

• Users will be shown a teaching callout within Whiteboard to inform them of the new @mention feature.  
• Similar to the blue @mention badge, users will see a new red badge on comments that will display the number of replies in that comment thread that they have yet to read.  

What you need to do to prepare:

This rollout will happen automatically by the specified date with no admin action required. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.