Last month saw lots of product releases, improvements, and newsworthy moments within the Microsoft Teams ecosystem.
Microsoft Teams announced updates relating to chat and collaboration, meetings, Mesh in Teams, webinars, fundamentals, Teams Rooms, devices, Teams Phone, platform, and frontline workers.
Some of the big Teams news from the last month has been the EU’s formal objections to Microsoft Teams and Office bundling, custom tone features added to Copilot for Teams, AI-optimised avatar introduced on Mesh for Teams, plus a whole host of Teams Rooms and devices revelations from InfoComm 2024.
Chat and Collaboration
Copilot can make alterations to draft messages in chat and channels. Simply, open Copilot under the message box in Teams and create a custom prompt, such as “convert into list form” or “rewrite my message in a persuasive style”. To utilise this feature, users will need to have a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license.
Suggestions to translate messages into your preferred language will appear when you receive messages in foreign languages. Furthermore, you can specify which languages you want to be translated automatically in your translation settings, thereby reducing app switching, saving time, and enhancing communication and collaboration.
Slash commands offer a user-friendly means of rapidly inputting action commands, instead of having to click multiple times to initiate a task, like opening a chat window, adding a code block, changing your presence, entering settings, and more.
Using meet now in a group chat, teams can quickly launch huddles to collaborate with their team, enabling a greater degree of spontaneity to the alternative of scheduling meetings
Code blocks can be co-edited and shared in Teams using Loop components to avoid having to send numerous code blocks. Insert your code into a Loop component or convert native code blocks into a Loop component, making it easy for co-workers to make edits and review them.
Permalinks can be used to share code with your team. It will display a rich preview from Azure Dev Ops, which is also where the code can be viewed by the receiver.
The compose box has been streamlined to enhance the messaging experience to make it easier to compose and send messages.
Multi-tenant organisation (MTO) user improvements are being added to boost collaboration experiences by removing the “external” label from the chat list and chat header, viewing richer profiles from MTO tenants, file sharing with other MTO users, access to chat threads with new messages from the home tenant, and the option for admins to configure text-based labels for each tenant.
Meetings and Mesh
Copilot in Teams is being extended for sales organisations with a Copilot for Sales plugin, which gives Copilot the power to process conversations in real time and offer insights for sellers, like account opportunity overviews. Copilot can also create dynamic prompts based on keywords and names within seller conversations. The plugin can be enabled with a few clicks from the Copilot plugin menu.
Meeting organisers have the option to manage access to meeting recordings, transcripts, and AI-generated insights.
Meeting notes that are powered by Loop are available in Channel meetings, allowing participants to work together, take notes, and track future tasks. What is more, because they are Loop components, meeting notes stay in sync everywhere that they have been shared. These are also now available to Government Community Cloud (GCC) environments.
The presenter toolbar can be moved and videos can be optimised by presenters whilst sharing your screen in Teams.
Meeting transcript file storage and management is rolling out new changes, including transcription-only meeting files saving to the OneDrive for Business folder, storage in Exchange Online is being depreciated over the coming weeks, default permissions will be updated to enable meeting file downloads, and organisers can amend file permissions in Stream.
Additionally, the admin policy for default expiry times for meeting recordings will be applied to the meeting transcript files stored in OneDrive for Business for transcription-only meetings and Microsoft Purview customers can use auto-apply retention label policies to set their retention and expiration controls.
The admin policy to block meeting recording download permissions is being expanded to meeting transcript files for all users within a tenant. Similarly, policies that require consent to be recorded will also be applied to transcripts.
The new Teams experience in Windows will include a microphone icon in the Windows taskbar through which you will have a shortcut to mute and unmute yourself.
SMS text notifications can be enabled in Microsoft Bookings for those with scheduled appointments. Previously this was only possible if an attendee scheduled an appointment through a published booking page.
New wardrobe options were added in May so that avatars could be made to look more like the users they are representing.
Mac access for Mesh in Teams is due to become generally available in June.
Webinars and Fundamentals
Teams webinar organisers will also be able to stop attendees sharing webinar event pages via social media for public events after the registration period has ended.
Microsoft Teams has redesigned the current VDI optimisation for Teams to provide additional features, including advanced meeting capabilities and easier app updates.
Teams Rooms and Devices
Conference rooms with multiple panels, check-in and room release have been synchronised with all panels for accurate room status and availability.
Teams users can automatically reserve desks when they connect to monitors or other equipment at a desk and share their locations, which Microsoft says improves hot desking and hoteling office experiences.
Newly certified Teams devices this month are the Poly Studio base Kit G9 Plus, Aver CAM520 Pro3, Sennheiser TeamConnect Bars, Q-SYS VisionSuite, Lenovo Wireless VoIP headset, and the Logi Zone 305 headset.
Teams Phone and Platform
Intelligent call recap adds one of the best AI features in meetings to calling, providing AI insights and recaps to VoIP and PSTN calls in Teams.
Admins can configure streaming music for callers on hold using an Easy On Hold integration, which lets them choose from a list of licensed music or create their own voice recordings.
The Do Not Disturb status can be managed while presenting or screen sharing.
Non-touch phone devices are gaining new capabilities and support for calling features like parking and unparking calls, auto restarts, managing contacts and contact groups, and busy-on-busy end user settings.
Frontline Workers
Lastly, new frontline worker solutions now available include shifts plugin for Copilot and speech-to-text for Teams Walkie Talkie.
June also saw UC Today’s Rob Scott joined by Microsoft Teams Expert and Co-Founder of Empowering.Cloud, Tom Arbuthnot and a panel of experts from the Microsoft Teams community to discuss the previous month of Teams news headlines.
from UC Today https://ift.tt/k42ijD7
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