New summer updates in Microsoft Teams

The Microsoft Inspire event brought with it a number of new features, solutions, and apps for Microsoft Teams that extend the capabilities of hybrid working. These updates will help to make hybrid work easier and better by modernizing communications and empowering workers with more advanced and collaborative applications. The impact of this app on organizations is immense and Microsoft soon realized the diamond in its hands. From an early age, the amount of new features released has already changed a lot, the way we work with this tool. Quality and reliability are undoubtedly its strengths and that is why it manages to control the competition. We have gathered in this article the most recent news presented at the event. We hope that the new features arrive quickly, as they seem very promising.

Microsoft has been committed to continuous improvement of this product and often follows the wishes and requests of users. Not all improvements are functional, there is of course the correction of errors and also the fulfillment of users’ wishes. An example of this in the past was the customization of Microsoft Teams backgrounds, which at the time delighted the daily users who suddenly found themselves working from their homes. Productivity improvements are useful, but being able to use funny Microsoft Teams backgrounds is also important to them.

Better collaboration in Teams meetings

Excel Live

Excel Live changes the way you can collaborate in a Microsoft Teams meeting. All participants will have access to edit the workbook in real time while the meeting is available. Excel Live also supports Sheet Views, which means everyone can edit a workbook they can sort or filter as needed without interrupting others. Excel Live will be available for public preview in August.

Collaborative Annotations

Collaborative annotations allow all meeting participants to draw, write or react on the content that is shared in the meeting through a complete set of tools powered by Microsoft Whiteboard. During shared use of the desktop screen and with annotations mode enabled, meeting attendees will see the annotations tool bar and can start adding annotations to get comments and generate discussions. The collaborative annotations are available to all users at this time.

Improvements to Microsoft Teams rooms and devices

Smart Cameras

Microsoft in association with certified OEM partners, including Jabra, Huddly, Logitech, Neat, Poly and Yealink, offers the new category of AI-powered smart cameras. The cameras leverage OEM-designed AI capabilities, such as Logitech’s RightSight 2 Grid View, Neat Symmetry, Jabra’s Dynamic Composition, or Poly’s People Framing, running directly on the camera. These experiences provide enhanced views of rooms and are optimized for remote participants, allowing each person in the room to be seen more clearly. In the coming months, this technology will be capable of producing multiple video streams that will allow in-room attendees to appear in individual streams to remote attendees, so each person can be seen and identified, helping you feel closer to each other. people when you connect remotely.

Enhanced webinar experience

Microsoft has decided to revamp the webinar experience with a new structure, giving expanded options to customize registration details and settings specific to each event, as each event is unique.

• Presenter Bios: Make presenters stand out with their profile picture, company name, job title, LinkedIn profile, and more.
• Themes: Showcase your brand and align with your event theme with a relevant banner, logo, and color scheme. It can be displayed on the registration page and in webinar communications.
• Capacity Limits – Set a specific limit to the number of attendees that can register.
• Custom Questions – Collect information from attendees with more pre-set custom questions, including the option to include consent to event-specific terms and conditions.

Microsoft is also making it easier to host events by assigning multiple co-hosts for additional support. It allows adding a structured question-and-answer experience to drive deeper engagement with the audience.

Shared channels

Over the past year, we’ve seen Teams Connect make it easier to collaborate with people inside and outside organizations. With Teams Connect shared channels, multiple organizations can have conversations, schedule meetings, share files and co-author, and collaborate on apps, all from one shared space, without having to switch tenants. In turn, key enhancements have been made that provide richer experiences for all channel members, including an increased number of channels, the ability for app developers to create apps for shared channels, improved administrative reporting, and a better user experience. messaging for external users.

Chat improvements

Here are the improvements Microsoft is making to the chat experience in Teams, making it easier for you to communicate with others:

Video Clip

Video Clip is a new feature that allows you to easily record and send a short video message in chat. Making a lasting impression and capturing the viewer’s attention instead of a simple plain text.

Personal chat tab

Your own chat tab offers an alternative way to stay organized and store important notes. Pinned to the top of your chat history, you can compose messages or notes, save files for yourself, and quickly access them to share later. This is a very useful feature and long awaited by the users. Your own chat tab is now available for everyone.

LinkedIn integration

From the Teams chat, channels, calls, or meetings, you can quickly view your colleagues’ LinkedIn profile details, as well as their current title, previous experiences, and other insights. This will allow you to build deeper relationships within Teams. It’s an excellent idea, facilitated by the fact that both are owned by Microsoft. The LinkedIn integration in Microsoft Teams is now available for everyone.

Microsoft Teams chat integrated into Dynamics 365

Users can link existing or new chats to their Dynamics 365 records, such as sales opportunities and service cases, for convenient access without constantly switching between apps. Once enabled, any Dynamics 365 user with a Teams license can access their chats and channels within the Teams collaboration panel directly from the app. Teams chat built into Dynamics 365 is in public preview and will be generally released and available to all soon.

Collaborative apps

Live Share

Live Share makes it possible for developers to make any app collaborative within the Teams meeting stage. Create a whole new space for users to share information and ideas, or complete complex tasks and projects. Live Share is backed by the power of the Fluid Framework, which supports sophisticated synchronization of state, media, and control actions with only front-end development. The sync service runs on a managed Microsoft Azure Fluid Relay instance hosted by Teams, at no cost to the developer. Live Share is in public preview.

Collaboration controls in Power Apps

More and more IT partners are building line-of-business solutions for customers using Power Apps. Now, with collaboration controls in Power Apps, you can drag and drop Microsoft 365 collaboration features. Chats, approvals, meetings, tasks, and files are now draggable into custom apps. Collaboration controls will be available in preview this August.

So far the main new features of Microsoft Teams were presented during the Microsoft Inspire event last July. More details and confirmations of these new features can be followed on Microsoft’s official blog. We look forward to fresh news soon, as these features become available. We hope that its impact will produce a significant improvement in productivity for all users.