During the recent Microsoft Ignite event, Microsoft unveiled a plethora of new features that would be rolled out to teams in the coming months. The overall intention of these updates is to continue to help people collaborate, build solutions and stay connected. The features displayed below are just a few that were hand picked out of the many updates.
New Together Mode Scenes
You will now be able to transport your team to a variety of different settings to help your team feel closer during remote work. The new additions include an auditorium, a conference room and a coffee shop. Studies have also shown that utilising together mode uses a significantly less amount of brain power than standard grid view meetings, meaning your staff won’t get meeting fatigue nearly as quick.
Meeting Recaps
This feature will be included later in the year but will contain a recap of the meeting recording, transcript, chat and shared files, that will automatically be shared in the chat tab.
Custom Layouts
Coming soon is the ability to create custom layouts with options to enable the presenter to customise how participants view the meeting. As an example, presenters could transpose themselves over the top of a PowerPoint to ensure maximum effectiveness.
Webinar Registration
For structured meetings, such as customer webinars, meeting organisers can use event registration with automated emails to make it easier to manage attendance. Following the meeting, organisers can view a detailed reporting dashboard that will help understand attendee engagement.
Breakout Rooms
Being released in late October, breakout rooms will allow organisers to split up a larger meeting into smaller groups to enable brainstorming sessions or smaller discussions. Presenters can move between breakout rooms to ensure everyone is on task.
Faster Searching
Coming later this year, an update to the search system that will both speed up and more accurately help you find what you are looking for. Utilising AI relevance Teams will be able to find your content with intuition.
Calling
Teams are simplifying the call process to show contacts, voicemail and calling history at once making it easier to initiate a call or return one with just a single click.
Collaborative Calling
Collaborative calling enables customers to connect a call queue to a channel in Teams. Users can collaborate and share information in the channel while taking calls in the queue. This feature is ideal for scenarios such as an IT help desk or HR hotline.
Walkie Talkie
The push to talk experience that enables instant and secure voice communication over the cloud. This system reduces the overall number of devices required for effective communication.
Integration between Teams and RealWear
Through an integration between Teams and RealWear head-mounted devices, field workers can remain 100% hands-free using a voice-controlled user interface while maintaining situational awareness in loud and hazardous environments.
Microsoft Ignite 2020 has brought us many amazing new features that many people will be excited about. These features will roll out over the coming year, ensuring there are things to continously look forward to. If you would like a free demo of Microsoft Teams, and how it can help your organisation, reach out below.