Get Early Updates Before Public Release In Office 365

Introduction

Day by day and week by week the Office 365 team is adding new features and updating the existing items to improve performance, usability and more. For example, they've added a New Responsive Admin Center, SharePoint modern UI experience, etc.

Click to view the latest & upcoming updates.

Different User Releases

At present, the Office 365 team is releasing the updates for two type of users,

Standard Users and
First Release Users.

First release users will get the updates before the standard users, but by default all users are placed under the Standard user category. There is a manual action required to enable that first release feature.

Enable First Release preference

Sign in to Office 365 Admin center.
Click on Settings and then Organization Profile. Organization Profile page allows the admin to view and manage the basic organization details, customize the theme experience and release preferences.
Edit Release preference settings
- In Release preference box, it shows the current release setting. Click on Edit button to open a popup page to update the preferences.
- Choose “First release for everyone” to get the latest updates for all users inthe organization.
- Choose “First release for selected users” to get updates for selected users inthe organization. And then select users from the people picker.
  
  Note To revert back to the option, choose “Standard release”.
After choosing the option, Click “Next” button and it redirects to the confirmation page.
Click “Yes” button to update the release preference.
After getting the confirmation of update, click the “Close” button to close the popup.
Now, the Organization Profile page shows the updated settings in the Release Preference box.

Conclusion

By enabling this preference, first release users can experience the latest updates before normal users get their hands on that feature in Office 365.