Microsoft Ignite 2020 kicked off today, and there was no shortage of news coming out of the collaboration giant’s digital version of the conference. Microsoft executives took to the virtual stage, painting a picture of the past eight or so months, highlighting all the changes the novel Coronavirus has brought our way.
The virus has forced many businesses to transform the way they communicate and their entire underlying infrastructure in some cases. Cloud communications have seen a rise in popularity during this time, too, highlighting the agility and efficiency of tools such as Microsoft Teams that enable the kind of fluidity needed in today’s enterprise environment. And Microsoft has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the rise in cloud adoption, with undoubtedly, an influx of new users.
The last time the company reported those figures was back in May when it reported 75 million daily active users. Now, well into the pandemic, one can only assume that number’s more than 75 million. What new features does Microsoft have in store for its popular enterprise-grade communications and collaboration app Microsoft Teams? The answer is a ton. So, here’s our round-up of announcements made at Microsoft Ignite 2020.
Data Insights Power BI for Microsoft Teams
Microsoft said it would make a series of enhancements to the Power BI app for Teams, and announced it would be available in public preview later this year. “This will make it easier to discover data from across the organization and to create visualizations from Excel datasets from within Teams,” a spokesperson for the company told UC Today in a statement.
This should enable Microsoft Teams users to collaborate more effectively and make decisions based on real-time insights, I’m told. The new capabilities will result in something novel for Teams users – a centralized hub where they can locate and analyze data while they improve the way they use Excel and Teams with built-in channels, chat, and meeting experiences.
Cortana to Gain New Capabilities within Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and Windows 10
Cortana, Microsoft’s voice assistant is now generally available in Microsoft Teams displays, a new category of all-in-one dedicated Teams devices. The newly-available Cortana will extend a hands-free experience that lets Teams users join meetings, make calls, send chat messages, as well as share files.
Starting this month, Cortana will be available in the English language in the US. In the coming months, it will make its way to Australia, Canada, the UK, and India, Microsoft told UC Today. The popular voice assistant will also make its way (later this year) to Microsoft Teams Rooms devices along with intelligent speakers – extending a touchless experience for users who wish to join and end meetings in the US.
Daily briefing emails from Cortana are also to become generally available for Microsoft 365 Enterprise users in English starting this month. In months to follow, Microsoft says Cortana will gain new functionalities that help to ‘streamline meeting preparation,’ integrate with Microsoft To-Do, support planning, and for specialized insights for people managers.
Play-my-emails, a new Outlook mobile experience that lets users listen to and respond to inbox messages, and do so hands-free via Cortana, will roll out over the coming months in Australia, Canada, the UK, and India. The feature is already available in Outlook for iOS and Android in English in the US. A spokesperson for Microsoft told me in an email statement:
“With updates this month to Outlook for iOS in the US, users can interact with their inbox while their phone is in their pocket”
On the list of cool new functionalities, users can also initiate calls with the sender of an email, play emails from a specific person, time topic, as well as connect many accounts. Cortana in Windows 10 also got several updates.
Insights and Wellbeing Updates in Microsoft Teams
MyAnalytics and Workplace Analytics are on their way to Microsoft Teams, two experiences that will lend individuals, managers, and organizational leaders personalized insights. The features will also add suggested actions to ‘enable change and create wellbeing.’
“Key personal productivity insights, such as suggested tasks for the day, will be delivered to your Outlook inbox at the start of the day with a daily briefing email from Cortana”
This feature is said to become generally available this month. New personal wellbeing features, including a virtual commute, integration with apps like Headspace, and an emotional check-in experience – all coming to Teams in 2021.
Microsoft Search
Fresh innovations for Microsoft Search are on their way later this year, ones designed to make it simpler to find everything you want – no matter the Microsoft platform you use. “In Microsoft Teams, a new search experience lets you find answers, people, files, meetings, and messages in the context of a chat or channel.”
Microsoft Search will even extend personalized search results to Windows desktop’s search box – which Microsoft says will create a coherent search experience across desktops, Office.com, SharePoint, Bing, and Microsoft Edge.
Look out for the new search experience in Teams – powered by Microsoft Search – which should be available by the end of 2020. It will make finding messages, people, and files faster and more intuitive. A redesigned search results page provides better context and faster results, with AI-powered relevance based on the people and content you engage with most in Teams and other Microsoft 365 services.
Microsoft Teams Updates
Later this year, Microsoft said it will make some necessary changes to its calling experience from the Microsoft Teams platform. This includes an all-new streamlined view that shows contacts, voicemail, and call history at a glance. There are some other enhancements, too, which are as follows:
- Collaborative Calling – a feature that will let customers connect call queues to Teams Channels.
New meeting features for one-on-one calls, including transcription, live captions, recording, and the ability to transfer between Teams’ mobile as well as desktop apps
Microsoft added in a statement, “Transcripts and recordings are saved in the chat window after a call. These features can be enabled via the control bar within the call window.”
- Microsoft Teams display – a new category of all-in-one dedicated Teams devices with an ambient touchscreen and a hands-free experience powered by Cortana – will be made generally available in weeks to come, according to the collaboration giant
- Microsoft is also working with AudioCodes, Poly, and Yealink on a new line of low-cost Microsoft Teams phones
- The company’s portfolio of Teams devices will receive an expansion in the form of new USB peripherals with dial pads and a modern Teams user interface
- Users can also expect team templates, which are available now, and make setting up a team easier. You can choose from a predefined set of channels, tabs, apps
- Info pane, a new feature that’s available now – extends an at-a-glance summary of active members, posts, and other relevant information in each channel
Among the company’s most useful new updates, an increase in the limit of members for individual teams – which is in the works for later this year. “Although there is already no limit on the number of people in a Teams tenant, the size limit for individual teams will support up to 25,000 members.” New ‘together mode scenes,’ are in the works and ‘coming soon.’ That feature’s set to gain even more superpowers and will eventually leverage machine learning to automatically scale and center participants in their virtual seats, no matter their distance from the camera.
Also, custom layouts will allow presenters to customize how meeting content shows up for participants during the meeting. The feature uses the same AI technology used by background blur and together mode, Microsoft shared in a statement. Breakout rooms – which will make a debut before the end of the year, are set to enable meeting organizers to split up meeting participants into smaller groups.
October is set to be a busy month for Microsoft Teams, with 20 new partner apps slated for release. “More than 20 partner apps are coming this October with meetings extensibility moving to general availability, allowing Teams users to customize their Teams meeting experience with third-party apps.” That includes HireVue, ServiceNow, Range, Buncee, and PagerDuty are among the apps expected to roll out in the coming months.
Microsoft previously said that it would introduce Teams Live Captions with speaker attribution. That functionality is now in general availability.
Microsoft Teams EHR Connector
The new Microsoft Teams EHR connector, now in private preview, lets doctors and their patients launch a virtual visit or consult with another provider in Teams from their EHR system. “The Epic EHR system will be the first to integrate with Teams in this way, and Teams will be available in the Epic App Orchard later this year, enabling customers to launch an EHR-connected virtual visit in Teams directly from the Epic EHR system.”
Microsoft says support for other EHR systems will follow suit. Nuance Dragon Ambient eXperience (DAX) will integrate with Microsoft Teams to capture and contextualize physician-patient conversations from within Microsoft Teams. The capability should a lot of value, too, such as automated clinical documentation for telehealth visits, a feature now available in private preview.
New Front-Line Worker Updates
For those on the front lines of the novel Coronavirus, Microsoft said it will release a range of updates and new features in the Microsoft Teams platform to ensure these vital workers stay connected. This includes:
- Shifts schedule assistance, a feature now available – sends alerts to managers when there are scheduling conflicts
- Tagging by shift, also now available, lets users target Teams messages to specific recipient groups split up by their roles and the shift they work
- Off-shift access controls, out now, are designed for IT administrators to configure Teams to send alerts to employees when they access the app on their devices outside of working hours
- The Teams-RealWear head-mounted devices are now available – devices that make it possible for field workers to remain hands-free using a voice-controlled user interface
“Firstline workers using RealWear HMT-1 and HMT-1Z1 devices can collaborate with a remote expert using video calling in Teams, access chats, and other resources using only voice commands and conduct calls and field operations completely hands-free.”
Walkie Talkie Updates
Microsoft also added a walkie talkie feature to Teams for Android, which uses push-to-talk technology, another feature for front-line workers who leverage Microsoft Teams technology in the workplace. The company added in a statement, customers who use analog radio devices will no longer have to worry about ‘crosstalk or eavesdropping from outsiders.’
Microsoft’s updated its walkie talkie feature to work over Wi-Fi and cellular data. “For teams not yet enabled with a push-to-talk experience, Walkie Talkie in Teams enables instant team communication with preconfigured channels set to have the right conversation with the right people.” The feature comes integrated with purpose-built devices designed by BlueParrott, Klein Electronics, and Samsung, and this includes the new Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro which has a dedicated push-to-talk button.
Fresh COVID-19- Relevant Features
Organizations across the globe have adapted to the ‘new norm,’ which in many instances implies a sort of hybrid environment. Microsoft’s released a set of relevant features that will be available by the end of the year. The biggest area in which Microsoft’s stepping up its feature-sets to enable a safer workplace – meeting room capacity notifications.
“Using data from the meeting room cameras equipped with people-counting technology, this feature alerts in-room meeting participants if the room is over capacity based on capacity data defined by the IT administrator,” a spokesperson told UC Today. Several other features support touchless experiences, and those include:
- Room remote for Microsoft Teams Rooms, which lets users control in-room devices without touching the center console. Users controls include the ability to join and leave meetings, mute and unmute a room, adjust the volume, and turn cameras on and off
- Support for Cortana voice assistance on Microsoft Teams Rooms to join and end meetings with simple commands. Microsoft said other commands will be added in the future
- Proximity Join on Surface Hub will let users join a meeting on Surface Hub from their PC or mobile device. Users can select nearby room audio devices they wish to use and can join using the meeting room audio and video of their choice. The user’s PC or mobile device will join automatically in a muted state to avoid audio feedback, according to Microsoft, an experience currently available for Microsoft Teams Rooms
- Teams casting for Microsoft Teams Rooms lets users wirelessly connect and display content on a nearby Teams Rooms device from a smartphone. Eventually, the capability will be made available via PCs
- Intelligent speakers enable voice recognition of participants joining Teams meetings from a conference room for transcription purposes – devices that will make their debut in early 2021
- Teams panels are mountable devices designed for the outside meeting spaces and enable management to view spaces, meeting room availability status, etc.
- Microsoft Teams Rooms and Surface Hub will display new video gallery views including the 7×7 grid view and Together mode
New meeting room management capabilities in the Teams Admin Center offer an improved portal experience for managing calls, and meeting devices including Teams phones, Teams displays, and Teams Rooms, all from one location.
“New features include device health monitoring alerts for immediate troubleshooting and secure delegation to a dedicated device management admin role or Microsoft partner”
Compliance and Security Updates
On the compliance and security front, Microsoft announced at this year’s virtual Ignite – Customer Key support for Teams. “Microsoft helps keep Teams data safe by encrypting it while at rest in Microsoft datacenters.” Now, Microsoft said – it would extend the capability to customers so they could add a layer of encryption using their keys for Teams – similar to Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and OneDrive.
That’s not all, Microsoft added a slew of key features designed to keep organizations compliant with various consumer data protection laws.
- Insider Risk Management – new native integration with Microsoft Teams so users can collaborate with relevant stakeholders within an organization
- They can also use channel conversations to coordinate and track review/response activities, along with share, store, and review relevant files, etc
- Advanced eDiscovery now supports live documents and links shared in Microsoft Teams
- Policies for Microsoft Teams meeting recording allow customers to retain and delete recordings with in-place governance, which means the retention policies apply wherever the recordings are saved without the need to export elsewhere, which rolls out in October
- Microsoft also said it would place Teams-specific actions in Compliance Manager in general availability
Finally, Microsoft said it would partner with the MilGears program at the US Department of Defense and with Trident University on a Decentralized Identity pilot. Stay tuned for more coverage of this year’s Microsoft Ignite. We’ll update you in the coming days as we find out more relevant features soon to hit the popular workplace and team collaboration platform, Microsoft Teams.
Keep tuned to UC Today – we have all the Microsoft Ignite 2020 coverage…
