Simple Chat Community Call - August 2026

https://aka.ms/simplechat-community-call In this Simple Chat Community Call, Paul Lizer and Nathaniel Doyle walk through the latest administrative features, per-user model governance, workflow enhancements, document processing improvements, external data actions, and the roadmap for upcoming Simple Chat releases. Paul begins with a detailed review of new administrative capabilities in Simple Chat. These updates include a redesigned admin experience, expanded chat settings, AI notices, terms of use, file upload controls, conversation history controls, custom model information, and the new conversation contents drawer. He also shows how document drawers help users understand which materials were retrieved and which sources were actually cited in a grounded response. The call also highlights the latest fact memory improvements. Fact memory is now available as an independent chat capability and no longer requires agents or actions to be enabled. Administrators can turn it on for standard chat, while users can review, edit, delete, and update their own memories through profile settings or chat instructions. Paul explains how this helps preserve user preferences and formatting guidance even when long conversations exceed the model context window. Additional user experience updates include desktop notifications, audio completion cues, profile-based accessibility settings, and user controls for font size and notification preferences. These capabilities help users manage how they interact with Simple Chat while giving administrators centralized control over what features are available. Paul also reviews new file and workspace governance features, including controls for public workspaces, file downloads, shared-conversation file approvals, upload size limits, and workspace naming. In shared conversations, generated files can now require owner approval before becoming available to other participants. Nathaniel then demonstrates per-user model governance using APIM subscription keys, identity headers, endpoint policies, allow lists, and block lists. He shows how administrators can enforce different rate limits for users who share the same backend model by passing a stable hashed identity header through Simple Chat to APIM. This allows organizations to apply quotas, routing, and chargeback logic at the user level. The governance discussion also introduces delegated policies, which can be applied to specific endpoints, models, or agents. Nathaniel explains how these policies can allow selected users, block others, and override broader permissions with explicit block lists. Although the live demo encountered a product bug before the full end-to-end scenario could be completed, the intended governance model and configuration approach are demonstrated in a separate instance. The call includes a major walkthrough of the redesigned workflow authoring experience. Paul demonstrates how workflows can be triggered manually, on a schedule, or through file synchronization. He shows ordered tasks, default model or agent selection, document analysis, instruction drafting, alerts, retries, conditional logic, and generated deliverables. A claims-related example workflow illustrates how multiple documents can be reviewed, summarized, analyzed, and assembled into a memorandum-style output with tables and charts. External data integration is another major theme of the session. Paul demonstrates Azure Blob Storage file synchronization, including folder rules, subfolder selection, file-type filtering, and tag assignment. He also shows external actions that query telemetry data, generate charts, and create downloadable CSV files. These examples highlight how Simple Chat can connect to outside systems while still supporting governed collaboration and controlled file approval in shared workspaces. For organizations with on-premises file shares, Paul recommends using AzCopy to move files into Azure Blob Storage so that Simple Chat can synchronize and tag them more easily. This provides a practical path for bringing large document collections into the platform when direct access is difficult. The roadmap discussion covers planned work across file sync, orchestration, workflow loops and branching, document selection, long-form Word and PowerPoint support, reusable templates, LaTeX rendering, content-safety governance, DLP and PII controls, restore support, improved image generation, and additional workflow actions. Stay connected and share feedback Email: simplechat@microsoft.com Repository: https://aka.ms/simplechat GitHub issues: https://github.com/microsoft/simplech... LinkedIn:   / paullizer   #SimpleChat #AzureAI #EnterpriseAI #AIGovernance #WorkflowAutomation #DocumentAnalysis #APIM #MCP #AzureBlobStorage #ContentSafety #FactMemory #CosmosDB #AzureOpenAI #Copilot #AICommunity