What’s New In Microsoft Teams – February 2023

Our regular monthly?Microsoft Teams ?update for February. Last month’s release includes updates to the Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android, Teams Phone, newly certified devices and integrations, and webinar feature updates.

Meetings

Paging on Video Gallery

When in the Gallery view, and there are more videos than can be shown at once on the meeting stage, navigation controls now appear below the Video Gallery to see additional videos of the attendees. These controls can be used to view more video participants.

Meeting Toolbar Usability Improvements

The Meeting toolbar in Microsoft Teams has been upgraded with new features that include dedicated buttons for raising hands and switching between view modes, find?more info here .

Live stream Teams meetings and webinars to Meta Workplace Live

It is now possible to live stream your Teams meetings or webinars directly to Meta Workplace Live using the new Workplace Live app integration. This allows attendees to watch live meetings and webinars within their Workplace groups or catch up later by watching a recording on Workplace. To set up, add the Workplace Live app to your Teams meeting or webinar, sign in using your Workplace account, and select the Workplace Event you’d like to live stream.

Calling

Federated group calling

Easily start a group Teams call from a chat with federated colleagues outside your organisation, including video and screen sharing — all over an internet connection without any PSTN usage charges.

Teams Phone Resource Accounts

Teams Phone Resource Account licence (Virtual user licence) is?now required for all Resource Accounts used by Teams ?– don’t panic, they are free, and there is no plan to monetise them, but there might be some admin work for you to do.

Microsoft Teams Phone number routing logic change

A big change in how Microsoft Teams routes PSTN phone calls to users is coming. If you have users with an assigned phone number in the format where digits are added as an extension, be sure to?check out this routing change.

Teams Rooms and Devices

Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android

There is a new user experience update in progress for MTR on android which starts rollout to production starts early March 2023 and is expected to be completed by April.

Features include:

• Quickly start an ad-hoc meeting with the Meet button
• Join Teams meeting with ID and passcode
• Extend a current room reservation within a meeting
• Front Row layout and meeting chat in Gallery, Large gallery, and Together mode
• HDMI or USB-C content can be automatically shared or require pressing the share button
• Share laptop sound into the room/meeting when sharing content via HDMI
• Room users can now add annotations to a screen share if the MTRoA has a touch display
• Support for Teams Premium Watermark-enabled meetings

Start Whiteboard from a Teams meeting for MTRoW

Teams Rooms on Windows users are now able to start a Microsoft Whiteboard in Teams meetings using the one-touch in-meeting share content function from meeting room consoles. With new patterns of work, whiteboarding is becoming a key feature to enable collaboration between in-room and remote users. When Whiteboard is started from the room, it is attributed to the meeting organiser so that they can manage access to the shared content. For more information on using Microsoft Whiteboard on Teams Rooms devices, see?Manage the Whiteboard in Microsoft Teams – Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Learn .

Meeting chat on Gallery, Large gallery, and Together mode for MTRoW

In-room users can use meeting room consoles to show or hide chat on the front-of-room display alongside meeting participants and/or content when in Gallery, Large Gallery, or Together mode. The functionality is available to users through the View Switcher on meeting room consoles, and IT admins can configure whether to hide meeting chat entirely for a room.

In-meeting notification improvement for MTRoW

New enhancements to in-meeting notifications for Teams Rooms on Windows create closer alignment with the familiar Teams desktop experience. Critical notifications that require a user action will continue to be available and actionable with informational notifications on the front of the room screen.

Certified Devices+

Poly CCX350 IP desk phone

The new?Poly ?CCX350 gives customers incredible value in a highly versatile and durable desk phone that can be fully integrated with Microsoft Teams. Engineered for difficult environments, the CCX350 is ideal for environments such as retail, warehouse, and manufacturing locations, as well as other scenarios where devices need wiping down, thanks to its durable design and debris resistance. The two-position stand and optional wall mount features make it easy to place anywhere, and it’s perfect for shared or “touchdown” spaces.

Certified Integrations

Cisco Webex Contact Center is now?certified for Microsoft Teams

The Webex Contact Center Integration for Microsoft Teams combines rich omnichannel customer engagement capabilities with Microsoft Teams to break down barriers between contact centre agents and the enterprise.

The solution features:

• Inbound calls from the Microsoft phone system can be skills-based routed to contact centre agents.
• On-net, toll-free calling, conferencing, and transfers between agents and subject matter experts.
• Support for both Microsoft PSTN and third-party direct routing providers.
• Hard phone/softphone support for Teams-based contact centre agents.

Frontline workers

Frontline workers using shared devices can now use Outlook and Power Apps on Android alongside Teams

Microsoft’s shared device mode allows frontline workers to easily authenticate by automatically signing users in and out of all the apps that have enabled this feature. In addition to Microsoft Teams and Managed Home Screen being generally available and?Edge and Yammer in public preview , Outlook and Power Apps applications on Android are now in public preview.?Learn more .

Webinars

Enhanced webinar management experience with customised options

Now when you select the webinar template, you’ll be able to see a new structure with expanded options to customise registration details and settings specific to each event. With this new management experience, you can configure your webinar with the following capabilities:

Setup

• Details:?Designate co-organisers to support managing and delivering your event
• Presenter bios:?Highlight each of the speaker’s professional headshot, company, title, LinkedIn profile, social media accounts, brief bio, and more
• Theming:?Showcase your brand and align the theme of your event with a banner, logo, and relevant colour scheme that will display on your registration page and webinar communications

Registration

• Configuration:?Set registration capacity limits for up to 1,000 attendees; add expanded custom questions to gather pertinent information about your prospective attendees including a dedicated question to upload terms and conditions and enable consent from attendees as they register
• Attendee status:?View relevant details for attendee status including who’s registered for the webinar and who has cancelled their registration

Reports

• Attendee reporting:?Easily access existing reporting and analytics in one central location as you view the data to understand attendee participation

Stay Up To Date With Microsoft Teams – Free Download

Microsoft is constantly adding new and updating existing features to Microsoft Teams.

If you’d like your business to benefit from Microsoft Teams and the added system integrations that can save time and money, download our short ‘SuperCharge Microsoft Teams‘ guide?here ?or contact us for a free 15-minute consultation and find out how we can support your business with Microsoft Teams. Call us on?0800 032 8274?or book a?discovery call here.

Find out more from the Microsoft Teams official blog post?here