Microsoft Teams - New features - August 2020 Update

Over the last few weeks Microsoft have announced a host of new Microsoft Teams features that are released or will be released very soon. So below is a rundown of some of the main new Teams features - I cannot guarantee that this stays current as features seem to be added almost daily at the moment! Microsoft also published a study on the future of work, you can check it out here.

Microsoft Teams Together mode

This uses uses “AI segmentation technology” to digitally place multiple video feeds in a shared background. It’s designed to make people feel like they are in the same meeting. It also has some AI in to make people “look towards” the active speaker dynamically. This scales up to 49 people at the same time. More “room” types will follow including a boardroom and "coffee shop view".

See Below: Together Mode

Below: Video showing Together Mode

Microsoft Teams Large Gallery View

One of the big messages/feedback from users to Microsoft was the lack of a multi-tile view for larger numbers of meeting attendees. The 2 x 2 view was aimed at smaller meeting but this all changed in March 2020 with COVID pandemic and lockdown - However, Microsoft listened to the feedback. Firstly in April came 3 x 3 view and then in June 2020 Microsoft announced "Large gallery View". This feature supports up to 49 meeting video feeds. This is now rolling out to users over August 2020. This enables the view to 'scale up' depending how many people are in the meeting

Below: Example of 16 people in meeting

Below: Example of 25 people in meeting

Below: Example of 49 people in meeting

Microsoft Teams Dynamic Stage

This takes a little bit of getting you head around but Dynamic Stage uses AI to layout and size the different videos feeds. This maximises screen use and optimises the layout for those on video and provides a better overall viewing experience.

See Below: Dynamic Stage demo

Live captions now with Speaker Attribution

This is another hotly requested feature Previously live transcription did not show who was talking with each sentence, now it will show the name of the speaker.

Below: Live Captions with speaker attribution

Below: Live transcription with speaker attribution

Live Reactions in Teams Meetings

Another feature that has come from our users use social media is live reactions. This allows attendees to visualize their reactions and feelings in a meetings. Studies show that this improves user engagement and enables the meeting organizer to quickly gauge reactions of attendees

Suggested Replies in the Microsoft Teams mobile app

There has been a suggestion that this is a rip direct from Linked but its a useful feature - This Ai feature allows users who are mobile/on the move to use a suggested reply to a teams chat message - its useful when busy and it is smart enough to recognize a typo

See below: Suggested Replies

Reflect – a new polling app in channels

On of the results of COVID is for organizations to be far more conscious of staff mental well being especially as many people are working from home therefore Teams allows for HR or line managers to send out polls to check and assess how people are feeling. This feature requires a plug in and IT administrators will need be able to install the Reflect extension from GitHub, and then make it available to employees in their organisation in the message extension menu. Once installed, the extension provides suggested check-in questions and the ability to add custom questions that team members can respond to in a poll-like experience. Finally its worth noting that line managers (or teachers) can also choose to make poll results anonymous.

See below: Reflect Extention from GitHub

Chat bubbles

Currently Teams users need to manually open a chat window to view the chat screen. Soon, however, chats sent during a Teams meeting will surface on the screens of all meeting participants, making the chat more central to the conversation.

Interactive meetings for 1,000+ participants

Teams meetings are growing to support up to 1,000 participants. But sometimes you need to bring more people together to watch a presentation or discussion, and Teams will support this type of meeting experience for up to 20,000 participants this will need additional add on subscriptions more on this very soon.

Microsoft Teams displays

This was a surprise inclusion in the recent Microsoft partner event - Why is this needed? Well, there is a growing realization that homeworking for some may be a long term or even a permanent option therefore oganisations need to enable their employees to set up more effective home office spaces. To help, Microsoft are introducing new Microsoft Teams display, a new category of all-in-one dedicated Teams devices that feature an ambient touchscreen and a hands-free experience powered by Cortana. With natural language, users can ask Cortana to join and present in meetings, dictate replies to a Teams chat, and more. These devices seamlessly integrate with your PC, providing easy access to Teams chat, meetings, calling, calendar, and files.

New Whiteboard in Teams

One of the best apps that people don't use! Whiteboard in Teams will soon be updated with new features including faster load times, sticky notes, text, and drag and drop capabilities. This will enable team members who don’t have access to a touchscreen or Surface Hub (that's most people!) to participate in whiteboarding sessions during Teams meetings.

See Below: Whiteboard

Streamline your work and save time 

The Task app in Teams, rolling out this month, provides a new unified view of tasks from across Microsoft To Do, Planner, and Outlook. Smart lists like “Assigned to me” bring tasks together across different shared plans, whether you’re on desktop, web, or mobile. Add Tasks as a tab in a channel and get your familiar Planner tab experience with the new list view.

See below: Task app in Teams

Coming soon: Teams Breakout Rooms

This has been heavily requested by users especially education and again Microsoft have listened therefore it will be released later this year - No fixed month as yet but rumour control has October as a possible contender.

The following features are expected in Breakout Rooms:

• Ability to assign users to a specific room and Ability to randomly assign users to a specific room
• Presenters/producers can switch between rooms
• Breakout rooms have a time limit for how long they last before everyone being bought back to the group
• The ability to appoint a moderator of a breakout room and record those rooms separately.

So hopefully this gives you a good understanding of some of the new features within Teams More features are scheduled and you can keep track on the Microsoft 365 roadmap

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=Microsoft%20Teams

or follow the Teams Blog here

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/bg-p/MicrosoftTeamsBlog

Kind regards

David P

About the author - My name is David Poole I work at the BIST Group in Bingley, W. Yorkshire. My specialism is around Microsoft Licensing and cloud technologies with over 15 years’ experience in the ICT and telecommunication industries focusing primarily in the education, NHS, government and corporate IT sectors selling or project managing implementations. Before then I worked for 13 years in various customer focused positions mainly within the B2B marketplace. At BIST I also manage the HP and Microsoft Surface device relationship and very interested in exploring Digital transformation within education. If you want a conversation regarding your licensing, the cloud or Surface, please call me on 01274-518 789 or email me [email protected]