Last month saw lots of product releases, improvements, and newsworthy moments within the Microsoft Teams ecosystem.
Microsoft Teams announced updates relating to chat and collaboration, meetings, Teams Rooms and devices, Teams Phone, webinars and town halls, mobile, collaborative applications, frontline workers, and virtual appointments.
Towards the end of February, Microsoft announced it is extending the lifetime of the Teams Classic app to give users more time to switch over to the new Teams app.
The team collaboration hub also introduced video clips and new presenter tools to Teams.
Teams Chat and Collaboration
Microsoft released an enhanced version of the Copilot App, previously called Microsoft 365 Chat, for users with a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license.
The new app includes better prompts with user-related details, such as files, meetings, and co-workers, the ability to view your Copilot Chat history, and access to a prompts library through Copilot Lab.
You can now remove items from your activity feed, allowing you to focus on priority notifcations.
Activity management over what appears in your activity feed has been made possible from the activity card. Settings for the sound, display, and more can be changed by clicking on the ellipsis from an activity card and then selecting notification settings.
Teams Meetings
A new layout for content sharing in Together mode shows video participants when content is being presented or shared. Participants will be displayed on the same horizontal background beneath the shared content to help create a visual link between them.
Teams Rooms and Devices
Users can take advantage of end-to-end encrypted meetings and sensitivity labels for Teams Rooms on Android as part of the latest update to Teams Premium advanced meeting protections.
The new Teams Rooms calendar on Android displays your schedule for today and tomorrow.
Meeting views can be customised for Teams Rooms on Android, allowing users to change the layout of the front of room display.
Windows and Android users with any Teams license can use room remote on their Windows PC to manage rooms. This capability was previously available on mobile devices.
The 2024 Update 1 Release has delivered improvements to Teams Rooms on Android, which include design updates, extra meeting layout control options, and greater meeting security.
IT administrators can disable or modify the daily maintenance restart window from device settings. Teams Rooms on Android devices are programmed by default to restart between 2am and 3am if it is not being used.
Newly certified devices for Teams Rooms include the AudioCodes RXV 81B10 and the Teams Biamp Devio SCX, alongside the latest personal devices comprising the Yealink BH70 Bluetooth headset, EPOS IMPACT 700 headset, and the Teams EPOS IPMACT 860T double-sided headset.
Teams Phone
Admins can add a private second phone number for users, enabling them to receive incoming calls without needing to go through admins, assistants, or delegates.
Certain Snom IP phone models now have compatibility with SIP Gateway, making it easier to stay connected with team members. These models include the Snom D735 IP Phone and the Snom D717 IP Phone.
Teams Webinars and Town Halls
Webinars and town halls organisers can amend meeting options via an inline window inside the Teams scheduling form, allowing for an greater continuity within the organiser workflow.
Organisers can also change the order of registration form questions that attendees are shown during the webinar registration process.
Teams Mobile
Teams has added support for the Android Auto app that lets Android phones connect to car infotainment systems. As a result, users will be able to join meetings from Teams calendar view, call speed dial contact, and view recent calls while from their cars.
Sensitivity labels can also be selected for Teams meetings on mobile devices to enhance security and compliance within your collaboration space.
Teams app shortcuts can be created for your mobile’s home screen to improve accessibility.
Teams Collaborative Apps
The latest collaborative apps include inFeedo’s AI Assist, Bigtincan for Microsoft Teams, Culture Amp, EY Catalyst Connect, SAP Sales and Service Cloud, Smart Connect for Jira, Teledoc Health Condition Management, Workpath, and Zoho CRM for team collaboration.
Teams Frontline Workers
Admins can map their organisation’s frontline teams and locations to a hierarchy within the Teams admin centre. Attributes like department and brand information can also be defined by admins. The combination of this operational hierarchy and added metadata enables the integration of frontline apps and experiences, such as task publishing.
Important announcements can be targeted to the relevant frontline employees using location, job role information, and department, reducing the number of missed communications.
Teams Virtual Appointments
The Microsoft Graph API for Virtual Appointment SMS notifications have been introduced to let developers programme confirmations, reminders, updates, and cancellation SMS notifications for customers. The organiser must have a Teams Premium license in order to use this capability.
February also saw UC Today’s Rob Scott joined by Microsoft Teams Expert and Co-Founder of Empowering.Cloud, Tom Arbuthnot and a panel of experts from the Microsoft Teams community to discuss the previous month of Teams news headlines.
