Unwrapping Teams: Your Ultimate Guide to Microsoft's Latest Updates
Teeming with Teams Updates
Microsoft has been busy beavers, turning out heaps of enhancements over the last few months. Remember the Enterprise Connect conference back in March? That’s where they announced 59 new features. And then in April, they rolled out another 20 features. Phew!
Now you might be wondering, how do you sift through this avalanche of updates? How do you spotlight the ones that will make your business shine? Worry not, we’ve done the legwork for you, cherry-picking the best and most impactful updates from the dynamic world of Microsoft Teams.
Here’s what’s New in Microsoft Teams
Teams has revved up the engines for a faster, simpler, and more flexible experience. Here’s a snapshot of what’s in store:
Faster
They’ve hit the gas on Teams’ launch speed, meeting join time, and memory consumption.
The goal? To make Teams twice as speedy while only using half the system resources so get ready to:
- Launch apps up to 2 times faster
- Join meetings up to 2 times faster
- Switch chats/channels up to 1.7 times faster
- Consume up to 50% less memory
- Consume up to 70% less disk space
Simpler
Microsoft are on a relentless mission to tailor Teams to be as simple and user-friendly as possible while remaining feature-rich. The upgrades rolled out in this version are designed to make your Teams experience smoother and allow you to accomplish more with fewer clicks.
Here are the enhancements we’ve bundled up for you:
Streamlined Actions: Say goodbye to clutter! We’ve refined your notifications, search, messages, and channels for an uninterrupted workflow.
Personalized Experiences: With threaded conversations, customizable group chats, and interactive emojis, you’re about to take your collaboration game up a notch. Let your personality shine through every interaction.
Simplified Meetings: We’ve made meetings a breeze with improvements to the pre-join experience, gallery view, and screen sharing. Removing barriers and streamlining your meetings means more time for what matters: effective collaboration.
More Flexible
To improve your Teams experience, Microsoft have upgraded their authentication model, synchronisation, and notification systems for seamless and consistent user experience.
They understand that collaboration often involves working across different organisations and accounts. In the spirit of ‘working smarter, not harder’, they’ve made it so that you can stay signed into all your tenants and accounts.
No more constant logging in and out, you’ll receive notifications irrespective of the account you’re using.
The goal? To make Teams the ultimate hub for your collaborative work, no matter who you’re teaming up with.
Elevating Your Teams Experience: Noteworthy Extras
Teams Meetings
Unveiling Microsoft’s Automatic Lowering of Raised Hand: Microsoft Teams introduces the automatic lowering of raised hands after participants have had their say. This thoughtful feature alerts users that their virtual hand will be lowered once they’ve finished speaking, allowing the meeting organizers to focus on unanswered queries.
Microsoft’s Ultrasound Howling Detection, Their Sonic Superhero: Microsoft Teams now comes equipped with Ultrasound Howling Detection to solve the pesky echo issue. This clever feature detects whether another Teams device in the same room is already included with audio in the meeting. It then notifies the joining users and automatically mutes their microphones and speakers.
Video Closed Captions in PowerPoint Live, A Microsoft Innovation: Microsoft Teams now supports closed captions for embedded videos in PowerPoint Live. Every viewer can choose to turn on closed captions, ensuring your content is accessible to a wider audience.
Microsoft’s Green Screen in Teams Meetings, Elevating Your Presence: Microsoft Teams introduces Green Screen, a feature that enhances your virtual background, drawing more attention to you and your props during calls.
Collaborative Notes, A New Offering in Microsoft Teams Meetings: Starting from the Public Preview in April, Microsoft’s Collaborative Notes is set to become a game-changer. With a collaborative agenda, co-edited meeting notes, and follow-up tasks that sync with ToDo and Planner, your meetings will be more productive than ever.
Microsoft’s Avatars for Teams, A Fun Addition: Microsoft’s Avatars for Teams introduces a fun element to hybrid meetings. Now you can represent yourself with customizable avatars and reactions, bringing a new layer of choice to your meetings.
Teams Phone
Busy-on-Busy Settings, A Clever Addition by Microsoft: With the busy-on-busy settings introduced by Microsoft Teams, you can better manage distractions while in a call or meeting.
User Managed Call Queue and Auto Attendant Greetings, An Empowering Microsoft Update: From next month, authorized users can change greetings and announcements for their respective call queues and auto attendant directly within Teams, thanks to this user-empowering update.
Click-to-Call, Microsoft’s Answer to Seamless Interactions: Microsoft Teams is taking a big step towards meeting customers’ expectations. With the upcoming click-to-call feature, customers can reach your sales and support teams directly from your webpage or app.
Hotline Phones (Private Line Automatic Ringdown), A Microsoft Innovation: Microsoft is enabling Teams certified phone devices to directly dial a pre-configured phone number or contact. This significant update is set to go live next quarter.
Microsoft’s Virtual Front Desk, Transforming Personal Assistance: Microsoft’s upcoming feature, Virtual Front Desk, is set to revolutionize the way you interact with and assist customers and colleagues who are on-site.
Video Filters in Microsoft Teams Meetings, A Fun Microsoft Update: Microsoft Teams is enhancing the user experience with the introduction of video filters. Participants can augment their video stream with various visual effects, even before joining a meeting.
Mobile
Join Meetings from Calendar View on Apple CarPlay, A Handy Microsoft Feature: Microsoft Teams allows users to join a meeting from the new calendar view on Apple CarPlay.
Microsoft’s Text Prediction for Teams Mobile, Aiding Communication: Microsoft Teams is simplifying communication with its AI-powered Text Predictions.
Chat Bubbles during Teams Meetings for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android, Microsoft’s New Feature: Microsoft Teams allows Android users to view chats sent during a Teams meeting on the front of room display, adding to the meeting’s dynamism.
That’s not all…
Teams Rooms and Devices: Microsoft Teams is rapidly expanding its ecosystem, with certified Teams hardware devices from vendors like Audio Codes, Yealink, and Bose becoming increasingly popular.
Microsoft’s Reminder Emails for Webinars, A Handy Feature: Microsoft Teams’ reminder emails will help keep your event at the forefront of every registrant’s mind.
Staying Ahead with Formation Tech
Here at Formation Tech, our goal is to make our customers lives easier through technology. To learn more about us and the latest from Microsoft Teams, join our webinar on 5th July at 2pm. Follow this link to register [webinar link].
We hope you’re as excited about these updates as we are. Stay tuned for the next edition of “What’s New in Teams,” where we’ll bring you the latest and greatest from the ever-evolving world of Microsoft Teams. Until then, have a productive and enjoyable journey with Teams!
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