New Teams Features for Jan 2021

So, we've only just put the Xmas decorations away and settled into the third (and hopefully final) UK wide COVID-19 lockdown, but Microsoft have been busy readying a heap of latest updates for Teams which are rolling out this month (Jan).

I'm sure (if you are avid users/administrators of Teams) that you keep your eyes on the Office 365 official roadmap anyway but wanted to draw your attention to these 3 enhancements that start rolling out this month.

1. Meeting Recap in Teams - this is well overdue in my opinion and will go a long way in helping meeting attendees and those that were unable to attend a meeting to stay up to date and informed by providing the meeting recording, transcript, and all associated chat all in one place. This information will be automatically shared in the Chat tab and will be viewable in the Details tab. rolling out end of Jan to Feb 21.

2. "Meet Now" - from Outlook. Subtle but good time-saver this one as it means if you still spend most of time in Outlook (surely now), you can now initiate a Teams Meet Now without first having to launch/open/switch to the Teams client. Does that it says on the tin basically - users will see a new Meet Now button in the ribbon of the Calendar Tab in the Outlook.

Clicking on the Meet Now button will launch the meeting in Teams client. Rolling out late Jan / Feb 21.

3. Only invited meeting attendees can join Teams Meetings. This addresses one of the remaining privacy / bombing issues with Teams. Addressed for external participants last year, this update addresses the issue of making sure only those attendees you invite (including internals) can join the meeting.

This brings greater control over their meetings by enabling a new lobby setting where only Calendar meeting invited users will be able to join directly. Since this is directed at dedicated calendar invites, this does not apply to channel meetings since channel meetings are of course governed by the channel settings.

Meeting organisers can ensure that only Calendar meeting invited users can bypass the lobby after they schedule a new meeting by changing the meeting option "Who can bypass the lobby" to People I invite. Anyone else with the meeting invitation (for example if its forwarded) will be sent to the lobby. Rollout late Jan to middle Feb 21.

Here you go - expect these updates thick and fast this year.