Microsoft Teams 2.0, the latest version of Microsoft’s leading collaboration and productivity platform, is finally here. On October 31st, 2023, Microsoft announced the general availability of the new Teams app on both Mac and Windows. Plus, the tech giant revealed they had started to roll out Teams public preview for their government cloud and VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) users.
According to Microsoft, the company has been working on the new client, known internally as Teams 2.1, for years. However, the new Teams experience was only launched in public preview for the first time in March 2023. Since then, the tech leaders have made numerous enhancements to the client. Teams 2.0 has almost achieved feature parity with Classic Teams.
Plus, it will be home to some new, exclusive features unavailable in the previous version. For now, users still need to toggle “Teams 2.0” to access the new functionality, but following March 31st, 2024, classic Teams users will be automatically migrated to the new experience.
Here’s everything you need to know about Teams 2.0.
What is Teams 2.0? The Basics
Teams 2.0 isn’t just another update in a long line of enhancements to the Microsoft collaboration tool. The company describes it as a new “reimagining” of the Teams experience. Rebuilt from the ground up on the pillars of speed, flexibility, and simplicity, Teams 2.0 features an entirely new architecture.
The new client moves Teams away from the Electron ecosystem and into Microsoft’s Edge Webview2 technology, improving functionality and performance. According to Microsoft, the app will now use 50% less memory, have a reduced impact on CPUs, and enhance laptop battery life.
Microsoft says Teams 2.0 was built using the React framework to improve the performance and speed for Windows users. It now leverages Edge WebView2 as its host, reducing memory usage and disk space. According to GigaOm, New Teams is two times faster when loading, joining meetings, and switching channels or chats.
Teams 2.0 isn’t just delivering benefits for Windows users. Microsoft says they’ve also seen significant improvements on Mac, allowing users to access relevant information and collaborate faster. Teams 2.0 works natively on Mac and uses device resources more efficiently, even when users access multiple high-resolution monitors.
Additionally, security enhancements have been introduced for Mac users via a containerized app model, simplified updates, and Content Security policies. Plus, VDI users will get a significant boost, too, with an experience that minimizes latency and streamlines the flow of work.
Achieving Feature Parity with Classic Teams
Initially, when Microsoft introduced the public preview version of Teams, the experience lacked some classic Teams features. For instance, it could only support Windows clients and couldn’t support Loop components and certain apps.
Fortunately, since then, Teams has made significant progress, ensuring crucial features are all available in Teams 2.0. The new experience now has feature parity for almost all capabilities, including third-party apps, custom line-of-business apps, 7×7 video, breakout rooms, PSTN calling, call queues, and contextual search. Microsoft says it has focused on enhancing the basic security, reliability, and IT management capabilities of Teams 2.0, too.
With the move to general availability, the tech giant also said new features and enhancements rolling out for Teams will be exclusively available on the new platform. This includes features like multi-tenant organization (MTO) support and multi-tenant, multi-account (MTMA) capabilities.
Teams 2.0 is still rolling out for all users, including VDI and Government (GCC-High, GCC, and DoD) customers. However, it’s already available for standard Teams users and Education customers.
Is Teams 2.0 Better than the Classic Teams Client?
Microsoft has promised big things with the Teams 2.0 app. The company is working on making the platform more intuitive and powerful than ever before. Plus, the new Teams version will come packaged with some of the latest tools developed by Microsoft. Copilot AI, for instance, will become a core part of the Teams experience in the months ahead.
The new Teams app is up to twice as fast and consumes up to 50% fewer resources. Microsoft says it also offers a more simplified, streamlined user experience. Users can easily personalize experiences, manage notifications, and switch between light and dark modes.
You can also keep track of notifications more efficiently with features like “mark all as read” in the activity stream, chats, or channels. Even users with screen readers and keyboard shortcut fans will see an improvement. Microsoft says the usability improvements on the new app will make it easier to avoid repeated information and interpret tasks faster.
What’s New in Teams 2.0? Under the Hood
So, what will Teams 2.0 do differently?
Ultimately, Microsoft has designed Teams 2.0 to be faster, more efficient, and more user-friendly than the previous solution. You can expect a quicker, more streamlined experience with a revitalized user interface and less demand for computing resources.
Many of the most significant changes result from a new approach to the architecture of Teams. The previous Teams client is Electron-based. It’s built on a cross-platform, open-source programming framework, which has given Microsoft an easy way to code the system once and deliver it across platforms. However, Electron apps are also notorious for poor resource utilization and performance.
Switching to Webview2, which uses the Chromium browser engine installed on Windows with Edge, allows for a more lightweight, robust experience. Videos in online meetings will require less CPU power, and PCs with less powerful GPUs can access the whole experience.
Like classic Teams, Teams 2.0 will continue to evolve in the years ahead. So far, users can expect to access:
Seamless Cross-Tenant Collaboration and Communication
The new Teams 2.0 supports a more seamless MTO experience for companies that deal with various tenants. Users can expect rich collaboration and full-fidelity meanings while eliminating silos and tenant boundaries.
Moreover, features like multi-tenant and multi-account solutions for Teams will enable users to collaborate more efficiently across boundaries. Users can stay signed into multiple accounts simultaneously and receive real-time notifications from every account, among other things.
It’s possible to set statuses for each account and organization individually and engage in meetings without switching accounts. Users can get started by selecting their profile picture on Teams 2.0 and choosing “Add another account.”
Notably, the cross-cloud authenticated meeting feature ensures that hosts can verify the identity of participants when meetings begin and preserve data security.
An Improved Teams UI and Experience
The updated Microsoft Teams 2.0 features a slightly different user interface. For instance, there’s a dark mode option that follows the user’s OS setting.
The new user interface will also place posts in a chat or channel at the top of a page rather than the bottom. Microsoft says Teams 2.0 will make it easier to do more with fewer clicks. There are streamlined actions, less notification clutter, threaded conversation options, and more.
Most importantly, Teams 2.0 delivers exceptional speed. According to Microsoft, some of the most common complaints they’ve received from Teams users are connected to the app’s speed. The previous app can often launch slowly, take a while to load meetings and consume too much memory during interactions. The new experience will eliminate these concerns.
Plus, Microsoft has introduced streamlined actions to simplify search, messaging, channels, and notifications. Plus, users can access more personalized experiences with threaded conversations, new interactive emojis, and customizable group chats.
Teams 2.0 also updates the pre-join experience for meetings, gallery view, and screen-sharing experiences to remove barriers to effective meetings.
Updated Security and Copilot AI
The latest version of Teams will provide companies with a more secure, controlled collaboration experience. Microsoft will simplify IT management, with enhanced security enabled by adopting Trusted Types.
There will also be a more stringent content security policy in place to protect businesses against cross-site scripting attacks. Teams’ latest version will be installed into the “program data folder” rather than the “user profile folder.”
The program data folder isn’t editable by users, which gives Microsoft Teams clients better protection against attacks that might harm the platform’s performance. Moreover, Microsoft has introduced controlled-content meeting templates for Teams Premium users on 2.0. Telemetry retention options have also been extended up to 7 days after a meeting ends.
Teams 2.0 will also serve as the foundation for Microsoft’s next-generation collaborative AI experiences. Copilot for Microsoft Teams will work alongside users to help them boost their productivity. It can summarize meetings and chats with action points, generate content, and even find information buried in presentations, documents, notes, contacts, and emails.
The New Features Coming in Teams 2.0
Going forward, Microsoft will also bring various new features to the Teams 2.0 experience. The company has announced new capabilities like collaborative notes in Teams and profanity filtering controls. Microsoft 365 chat will also use cross-app data intelligence to bring suggested productivity prompts to users.
Teams 2.0 will feature the new “OneDrive for Teams” experience, which replaces the previous “Files” app. This should help Teams users access consolidated files, Loops, design boards, and dashboards in Teams within a unified workspace. It even comes with AI recommendations for which content to view based on a user’s specific needs.
Plus, Microsoft is simplifying the mobile experience for Teams users, reducing the steps it takes to join meetings. You can now participate without signing in and set or preview audio and video settings from your mobile device before you join.
Recent Features on Teams 2.0
Other new features in Teams 2.0 include:
- The Meet app: A new Teams app that centralizes common meeting catch-up and preparation activities with a single view of recent and upcoming meeting agendas and files.
- New meeting experiences: Users can now access “portrait blur” for a depth-of-field effect in video meetings. Teams 2.0 will include live translated transcripts in more than 30 languages and town hall events for up to 10,000 attendees.
- New channels: Microsoft’s updated channels experience in Teams 2.0 will make it easier to focus on critical topics, engage with stakeholders, and find specific information. The new experience comes with a revamped composed box, streamlined information pane, and enhanced in-channel search experience.
- The People app: The new People app in Teams 2.0 syncs all your Outlook contacts across Microsoft 365 devices and apps. You can create, view, edit, sort, and filter contacts in seconds. Plus, you can “file requests” for external contacts to join Teams.
- Microsoft Teams phone: The PSTN phone experiences in Teams are now available in Hong Kong. Plus, SIP Gateway overhead paging devices are now supported. Microsoft also recently announced new integrations for the Teams Phone contact center experience. Teams now has 23 contact center partners and 13 compliance recording partners.
- Workflows: The new Workflows app for Teams helps companies automate repetitive tasks across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. There’s also a new entry point to configure workflows within channels, allowing users to post alerts or digest information automatically.
Updates for Specific Use Cases
Microsoft is also introducing unique features for specific user groups in Teams 2.0. For instance, Frontline workers can pin up to five channels on their walkie-talkie home screen for rapid push-to-talk functionality.
Admins can also select which employees should be notified when a task list is published to avoid overwhelming teams with too much information. The Approvals Graph APIs allow developers to manage and create Approvals from any application.
Companies can implement SMS notifications into their virtual appointment meeting templates in the services landscape. This means external guests will receive notifications about their appointments in text messages, complete with a meeting link. However, this feature is only available for users with the Teams Premium add-on.
For Teams Education users, Teams 2.0 offers “Teams calendar” as a webpart in Viva Connections for education, making joining meetings and RSVP options more accessible for students.
How to Enable Microsoft Teams 2.0
The public preview version of Teams 2.0 has been available since March 2023. However, Microsoft introduced general availability for the experience in October the same year. Currently, Teams 2.0 is available to standard users and Education users. Additional solutions for government and VDI users will be rolled out through 2024.
Notably, all standard Microsoft Teams Classic users will be automatically upgraded to Teams 2.0 from March 31st, 2024. Microsoft recommends enabling the experience now to ensure users have time to get used to the new interface.
To get started, users simply need to flip the toggle in the left upper corner of the classic Teams app. Microsoft also offers a range of resources to admins to help them prepare their teams for new experiences within the updated client.
Currently, users can simply switch back to the Classic version of Teams using the toggle at any time. However, this toggle will be removed after March 2024.
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