Harbourne Release – Content Summary

The NHSmail Portal release is named in honour of Cheryl Harbourne, registered nurse, and home manager at Royal Star & Garter in Solihull, who was awarded an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours (2021) for her services to veterans during Covid-19.

Please find below a summary of the main content of the Harbourne release which was deployed on 24/01/2024. To view the full release notes for this release please see the PDF file at the end of this summary.

VN170 Functionality

Overview:

  • NHSmail Portal enhancements to support the transition from the existing national license provision to the new portfolio of services as defined in the newly negotiated Microsoft renewal agreement.
  • Updates to support the provision and management of the new national license SKUs and associated features.
  • Introduction of 2 new profiles under the new license offering, as follows: NHSmail Standard service and NHSmail Enhanced service (more information here)
  • For further  information, please see the support site article here.
  • 80901-VN170: Add a new license SKU to the NHSmail Portal – M365 F3

As part of this PBI, a new base license “Microsoft 365 F3” will be available when creating User Policies in the NHSmail Portal. This license will only be available to Standard organisations.

  • 81681-VN170: Add new M365 E3 national license to Portal

As part of this PBI, a new base license “Microsoft 365 E3” will be available when creating User Policies in the NHSmail Portal. This license will only be available to Enhanced organisations.

  • 83553-VN170: Add F5 security & compliance license to the Portal

As part of this PBI, users under an Enhanced organisation will have the F5 security & compliance license applied automatically. Details of the enablement of specific F5 features and applications will be shared in due course. Users under a Standard organisation will not have the license assigned.

  • 83554-VN170: Add MDO license for Standard users

As part of this PBI, users under a Standard organisation should have the MDO (Microsoft Defender for Office) license assigned. The license will be applied automatically through the User Policy process, and all mapped applications should be enabled without the ability for them to be toggleable in Portal. This license will only be available to Standard service organisations.

  • 84376-VN170: Add Microsoft Entra ID P2 License for Standard users

As part of this PBI, the Microsoft Entra ID P2 license will be assigned to users within Standard organisations. The license will be applied automatically, and all mapped applications will be enabled by default in the platform backend. This license won’t be visible in the User Policy page.

  • 80922-VN170: Modification of the user account creation process in line with national license deal

As part of this PBI, users created under an Enhanced organisation, will have a mailbox size of 50GB. Users created under a Standard organisation, will have a mailbox size of 4GB.

  • 82796-VN170: Update User Policy page to add button to Export Licensing Errors

As part of this PBI, Primary Local Administrators and Local Administrators to an organisation will have the ability to export licensing errors from the User Policy page. A new button Export Licensing Errors will be available under the Actions section of the User Policy page. When selected, the licensing error will be sent via email to the requested administrator.

  • 82972-VN170: Create/Update User Policy will allow up to 500 users

As part of this PBI, the creation of User Policies will allow administrators to add up to 500 members. When more than 100 users are added, an in-progress message will appear top right of the Portal page, informing the admin they will receive an email once the task has finished. There will be a single audit if more than 100 members are added.

Portal AD Functionality

  • 70653 – ODS – Update replace special characters in ODS daily sync job (replace @ with AT, & with AND, etc) and remove any consecutive whitespaces for org names. As part of this PBI, special characters within organisation names will be updated as follows in the Portal:
    • For @ replace with ‘ AT ‘
    • For & replace with ‘ AND ‘
    • For *+_#^?/! should be removed
    • Check for any consecutive blank spaces and replace this with a single space.
    • Allow dash (-) to be a valid character.

This may cause a disparity between the ODS Portal and NHSmail Portal.

  • 78240 – New columns in MFAStatus ReportAs part of this PBI, the following six new columns have been added to the MFA Status Report within the NHSmail Portal:
    • OrganisationUnitName
    • OrganisationUnitODSCode
    • MailboxType
    • MailboxStatus
    • AUPStatus
    • AccountType

The MFA Status Report will only pull through user mailboxes with the following statuses:

    • Active
    • Active (Leaver),
    • Inactive (Leaver),
    • Inactive,
    • Disabled

Application Accounts will be included in the report and reflected in the AccountType column.

  • 80807- Change in Optometry Registration Contact Email Address

As part of this PBI an update will be made to the Optometry BSA (Business Services Authority) email address displayed in the pre-requisite questionnaire. Users will be informed to contact pao-support@nhsbsa.nhs.uk to have their authentication code provided.

  • 81473- Update Criteria Logic for Account Secret Rule no organisation Name

As part of this PBI, the criteria logic for not allowing organisation names within a user’s account secret has been updated. Words with less than or equal to 3 characters within an organisation name will be ignored, enabling the account secret to include organisations single, double, or triple letters within the name.

To view the full release note please refer to the PDF file.

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