Microsoft Teams stands as one of the foremost essential applications for businesses, with a staggering 250 million active users relying on its powerful collaboration and communication capabilities.
At Flotek Group, our dedication is to empower our valued customers with the latest Microsoft Teams updates, enabling them to stay ahead in the ever-evolving digital landscape. Our mission is not only to keep you informed about the newest features and improvements but also to guide you in embracing these advancements to foster enhanced collaboration and streamline your workflow seamlessly.
In this Teams blog, we are excited to bring you updates in Microsoft Teams and provide invaluable insights on leveraging these updates to boost productivity and collaboration to your business. Flotek group wants you to strive for continuous improvement, making the most of Microsoft Teams‘ capabilities to elevate your team’s performance and efficiency.
Table of Contents
Microsoft 365 Copilot in Microsoft Teams
Phone
In the next wave of generative AI for Teams, advanced AI capabilities are being added to unscheduled calls. Copilot in Teams Phone generates call summaries, captures action items, and answers users’ questions about the conversation. By automating distracting tasks, Copilot keeps users focused and engaged during calls.
Chat
Copilot in Teams chat streamlines information synthesis from chat threads. It facilitates catching up, organising key points, and summarising relevant information through targeted questions or suggested prompts. Copilot minimises chat management effort, allowing you to focus on what matters without work interruptions.
Collaborative Notes in Microsoft Teams Meetings
Attendees collaborate in real time on meeting agendas, notes, and tasks. Integration spans Teams, Loop, Planner, To Do, Office.com, and OneDrive for Business. Loop’s collaborative notes stay synced across multiple platforms, shareable via chats, emails, and documents.
Assigned tasks trigger email notifications and sync with To Do and Planner. Access collaborative notes in the calendar invite, during the meeting via the ‘Notes’ button, and in the ‘Recap’ tab post-meeting.
Shared Calling
Shared calling enables groups of users to utilise a shared phone number and calling plan for PSTN calls. It works for Teams Phone licensed users, both in E5 and Teams Phone Standard.
Admins can easily enable shared calling in the Teams admin center by creating a custom policy, assigning a resource and phone number to it, and then assigning users to the policy. Whether for a small office or a large enterprise, shared calling accommodates any scale.
Availability is expected later in the quarter.
New keyboard shortcut enables search in a specific chat or channel
Finding specific content in your chat and channels can be time-consuming. An enhanced search experience enables quick content retrieval.
Use the CTRL+F shortcut (Command + F for Mac) to open the search window.
Type in your keyword, and relevant results from the specific chat or channel will appear on the right side. Selecting a search result provides greater context by taking you directly to the message.
This feature is available now.
Chat embedded in Microsoft Edge browser
When opening a webpage link from your Teams chat using Microsoft Edge, the chat window will follow you to the Edge browser so you can view the content and chat side-by-side and continue the conversation.
You can access your recent chats and start new chats directly from an embedded chat pane in the Edge sidebar, removing the need to switch back and forth between apps.
This feature will be generally available later this year.
Create up to 1000 channels per team
Channels in Microsoft Teams facilitate collaboration within workgroups by providing a dedicated workspace to organise information, co-author documents, and engage in real-time conversations.
Now, with the upcoming update, you’ll have the ability to create up to 1000 channels in a team. This enhanced scalability eliminates the necessity of creating multiple teams on the same topic, allowing you to consolidate all discussions and activities within one central collaboration space.
The update is set to be generally available in August.
Shared channels external collaboration requests
Shared channels in Microsoft Teams allow you to create secure workspaces and collaborate seamlessly with people from other companies. The upcoming update will empower organisations to define their cross-collaboration process, enabling channel members to submit requests for inviting external users to shared channels.
This feature will be generally available in August.
Zoom in and Zoom out when viewing screenshare
Previously, when in a meeting you could only zoom using pinch-to-zoom gesture on a trackpad or other shortcuts. Now, you can use the newly available buttons to zoom in, zoom out, and restore the original size of the incoming screen share.
Learn more about the zoom in and zoom out feature in this insider deep dive article.
Teams Breakout Rooms participant shuffle
As a meeting organiser, co-organiser, or breakout room manager, you can utilise the new Shuffle capabilities to randomly assign participants to rooms—either prior to the meeting or during the live meeting. You can decide to either shuffle everyone or shuffle only unassigned participants to evenly re-distribute participants to existing rooms.
Learn more about this Teams Breakout Rooms Participant Shuffle in this insider deep dive article.
Express yourself in Teams meetings on Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI)
In Teams meetings on a virtual desktop, express yourself with emojis visible to all participants, enhancing inclusivity, engagement, and enjoyment.
Click the React button in the meeting toolbar to choose from Like, Love, Applause, Laugh, and Surprise live reactions. When content is shared, reactions briefly appear at the bottom of the screen, and participants’ names display corresponding reactions.
Learn more about this feature in this tech community article.
Copy links to group chat messages
When you want to reference a specific message in a busy group chat, you will now be able to share a link to that message. The link takes the recipient directly to the conversation and allows them to view historical chats pertaining to the conversation, gaining greater context.
Video enhancements in Teams chat
You have greater flexibility and control with enhanced video experiences in Teams.
Receive a Microsoft Stream video in a Teams chat? You can now preview and play it directly in chat, whether it’s a recorded team meeting from OneDrive or SharePoint.
Recording a video clip? Choose audio-only or screen record-only options when you prefer to be off-camera. For on-camera moments, use the new custom background settings, including background blurring for added privacy.
This feature will be available in August.
Video clips shared in Teams now have automatic captions in English, with support for more languages coming soon. Captions are generated upon video clip upload.
This feature is available now.
Teams calendar enhancements
You can manage your Teams calendar with greater efficiency with these new enhancements in Teams. A new agenda view in calendar gives you the ability to see a list of all events in an easily consumable manner, helping you organise for their day and be more productive. From the agenda view, you will be able to RSVP, join a meeting, chat with participants and access meeting notes, recordings, and transcripts.
If you need to reschedule an event in your calendar, you no longer need to open the event to reschedule it. By using the drag and drop feature, you will now be able to drag your existing calendar event and drop it in a new timeslot. You will also be able to check the participants’ availability before updating the event.
Webinars
On-demand recording for webinars
After a webinar has ended, an on-demand recording is available for organisers to manage and share seamlessly with attendees. Organisers can publish an on-demand recording of their webinar within the webinar management experience and an email is automatically sent to attendees with a link to access the recording.
Organisers can preview the email and edit the content prior to the on-demand recording being shared with attendees.
Advanced Webinars – Email customisation
Customise webinar communications effortlessly! As an organiser, you can edit and personalise registration confirmation, cancellation, reminder emails, attendee waitlist notifications, and more.
Tailor the sender’s name, subject line, add banners, logos, and modify the email content. Plus, for reminder emails, you have the option to customise the sending time.
Intrested In Improving Your Microsoft Teams?
If your ready to improve or to get started with a Microsoft Teams contact our team here or call us on 02921 508000
