This month has already seen lots of Microsoft Teams product releases, improvements, and newsworthy moments from Microsoft Build and beyond.
The tech giant’s annual developer conference, Microsoft Build, has given us even more to talk about, from custom emojis and extra intelligent recap capabilities to the preview of Microsoft Places, and the latest calling features.
- SIPPIO, Clerk Chat Launch Integrated Text Messaging for Microsoft Teams
- How to Send WhatsApp and iMessage Messages from within Microsoft Teams
- Microsoft Unveils Team Copilot, Your New Colleague for Teams Meetings
All in all, Microsoft Teams announced updates relating to chat and collaboration, meetings, places, platform, webinars and town halls, Teams Phone and Mobile, Teams Rooms and devices, IT admin and security, and frontline workers.
Earlier this month, UC Today’s Kevin Devlin discussed the biggest Teams headlines of the past month with Microsoft MCM/MVP and Co-founder of Empowering, Cloud, Tom Arbuthnot, and a panel of Teams’ experts.
Teams Chat and Collaboration
Microsoft Build: New chat and collaboration features introduced at Microsoft Build included the ability to use Slash commands to complete tasks more quickly, co-edit code blocks using Loop, customise and upload emojis and reactions, unfurl permalinks, launch huddle meetings in group chats, and generate images using Microsoft Designer in chat.
Elsewhere, it was announced that users are now able to share contact information of someone who is not part of a chat conversation, choose the domain to send Teams notifications emails to, select which file service to use by default, and utilise the new one-click link copying feature.
Teams Meetings
Microsoft Build: Capabilities revealed at Build this year were intelligent recap to support transcription-only meetings and scheduled channel meetings, management of who has meeting transcription and recording permissions, and the option to disable screen share as a protective measure against information leakage.
Outside of the developer conference, new features added to Teams meetings included the option to access and ask Copilot questions about meetings when they have finished, as well as during meetings.
Microsoft has also divulged that intelligent meeting recaps are now available in 16 more languages, such as Arabic, Danish, Dutch, Hebrew, Korean, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, and others. This will significantly expand the potential for Teams users around the world to utilise the AI technology. Meeting recaps and artifacts will also be shared automatically when a meeting ends.
New avatar wardrobe options have been made available, plus meeting content with collaborative annotations can be shared and saved during meetings as a Whiteboard so that meeting participants will have access to it after the meeting.
Presenters can make changes to background content in meetings when collaborative annotation is enabled.
Meeting recordings can also be trimmed using Microsoft Stream on Sharepoint.
Teams Places
Microsoft Build: Microsoft Places has been launched in public preview, which includes a location plan for workers, the ability to see who is working nearby, and ‘peek cards’ to give coworkers more information about the people they are in a meeting with.
Teams Platform
Microsoft Build: The developer conference also brought a range of features already in use in Teams that can now be embedded in custom apps and web experiences for Azure Communication Services. These were PowerPoint Live, live reactions, file sharing during a meeting, real-time transcription using Azure AI Speech, closed captions, ‘picture-in-picture’ video calls, noise suppression, live audio streaming for mixed and unmixed audio, and the Call Diagnostics Center,
Programmatic desktop sharing allows developers to create Teams apps for meetings that are able to share precise app content on-screen.
Teams applications using Live Share to build collaborative experiences can also now work in tabs, such as Chat, Channel, and Collaborative Stageview, as well as open Teams app content in multi-window Stageview.
Teams Webinars and Town Halls
A Teams Webinar integration with HubSpot has been added to improve lead scoring and prioritisation to help teams acquire high-value leads. According to Microsoft, The Teams connector streamlines data sent to HubSpot, enhances lead qualifications via webinar engagement insights, aligns marketing and sales, and promotes revenue growth.
Teams Phone and Mobile
Custom appliances can be connected with Teams for client-based customer service calling, as a result of interoperability between Azure Communication Services Call Automation and Microsoft Teams.
Following third-party testing, new Teams contact centre solution certifications have been revealed to ensure their reliability. Sikom and Intermedia have recently become ISV Contact Center partners, bringing the total number of contact centre partners up to 26.
Call forwarding setting have been enabled on Teams phone devices, busy-on-busy settings can be configured on Teams phone devices, incoming calls can be redirected to voicemail, calls can be made on behalf of numbers associated with a call queue or auto attendant, and Teams phone users can be prompted to set PIN locks via the admin centre.
Within chat and channels of Teams Mobile, users can record video clips with phone camera and share them. They are also now able to blur the background or change it to another picture.
Teams Rooms and Devices
Admins can gain remote access to troubleshoot Teams devices and configure software from the Teams Room Pro Management portal.
Newly certified Teams devices include the MAXHUB UC BM35, MAXHUB XT10-WS Kit, Epos Impact 760T Headset, and Epos Impact 730T Headset.
Teams Frontline Workers
Frontline managers can view the import history of teams when they are importing schedules from Excel into Shifts.
The usage of frontline teams and apps can be tracked through a usage dashboard in the Teams admin centre.
Finally, frontline managers can make it mandatory for their team to get approval on completed tasks, thereby improving worker visibility for tasks and completion rates.
In case you missed it, catch up with the Teams news and developments that came out last month.
Copilot+ PCs and Recall
As expected, Build was dominated by all things AI, including the launch of a new PC line powered by Copilot.
One feature in these machines that has particularly caught the eye is Recall, which banks a screenshot of what a user is doing every few seconds and stores it in a file on the device. Users can then visit this repository to retrace their steps, similar to how they can go back through their web browser history.
Microsoft insists it’s considered all privacy concerns; it says the screenshots stay on the user’s computer and that Microsoft itself cannot view them.
However, Microsoft states in the FAQs section that Recall will not filter or sensor sensitive information such as passwords and bank details.
The new tool has been met with a number of questions about its potential pitfalls, ranging from the creation of a new target for hackers, to something that could be exploited by domestic abusers.
The reaction has been enough for the UK’s Information Commission’s Office to confirm it’s engaging with Microsoft to understand more about Recall.
“We expect organisations to be transparent with users about how their data is being used and only process personal data to the extent that it is necessary to achieve a specific purpose,” The ICO said on its website.
“Industry must consider data protection from the outset and rigorously assess and mitigate risks to peoples’ rights and freedoms before bringing products to market.
“We are making enquiries with Microsoft to understand the safeguards in place to protect user privacy.”
