Who wouldn't know Microsoft's Teams app today? Once an exceptional tool for online calls, especially after the pandemic, it has become a must-have for every modern company or school. Meetings, conferences, discussions, lessons, or workshops – no problem, even if each participant is in a different corner of the country or the world. Make your teamwork even easier and discover new Teams features that have been added in June and July. We've selected the 15 best ones.
New features:
Experience the atmosphere of a real meeting
Communication via Teams often saves us time and is effective. We don't have to travel to meetings or dress formally. Just business on top, party on the bottom. However, nothing replaces the atmosphere of a real meeting. Therefore, developers created the so-called Together Mode for rooms, which uses AI (artificial intelligence) segmentation technology to digitally place participants in a shared background. As a result, you have the feeling that you are sitting in the same room with everyone else.
Record every idea
You know the drill. You've had an incredibly productive brainstorming session, resulting in several new ideas. However, none of your colleagues took notes, and you only remember a fraction. With the new automatic recording feature in Teams, nothing like this will happen again. The function will be activated as soon as the first participant from the same organization joins. The recording is then saved either to OneDrive or SharePoint. The feature is available for both desktop and mobile devices.
Cultivate a punctual team
It is said that punctuality is the privilege of kings. This is doubly true for important and crucial meetings at work. Teams now allows organizers to lock a meeting to prevent further connection attempts. This prevents disruptions from late team members. If someone attempts to join, they will receive a message that it is no longer possible. However, this feature is currently only available in the desktop version.
Make the tasks simpler
Often, a received message requires further action. To avoid constantly switching between different applications, Teams allows you to create tasks directly from a chat. Simply click the three dots, select „More actions,“ and choose „Create task.“ Additionally, when you paste a link to an article or a SharePoint page, an information-rich card will appear. This card will automatically highlight the title, author, thumbnail, and publication date.
Create smaller working groups
Breakout rooms allow meeting organizers to divide a meeting into smaller groups, making discussions or brainstorming easier. Organizers can jump between rooms at any time, send an announcement to all rooms at once, or bring everyone back to the main meeting at any time. You will surely appreciate this option for team-building events, for example, which will take on a whole new dimension.
Chat without switching
The Teams application helps us make online communication feel more like personal face-to-face meetings. That's precisely why many don't like switching to the text chat section. However, annoying interruptions are now a thing of the past. The chat will now appear in a small bubble on all meeting participants„ screens, making the conversation itself the central focus of the entire discussion again. This feature is now enabled by default. However, if you don't want to use it, you can disable it in the “More options" menu.
Start on the computer, finish on mobile
Your meeting has run quite long, but you have to be somewhere else? This is no problem for the updated Teams. With the new update, you can now make and receive calls from different endpoints. It doesn't matter whether you are on your computer or your mobile. The application guarantees seamless call transfer without interrupting your conversation or reducing quality. No one will notice a thing!
Customize your background
Customize Teams to your company's needs and highlight your services in the eyes of your clients. With the new update, you can set your own background, which will immediately set you apart from the competition. To enable the feature, simply upload images to the „Admin Center“ under „Meeting policies.“ You can add up to 50 images, and they will be available to all users.
Finally share screen with audio
From now on, you can include audio when sharing your screen during meetings on mobile devices. You'll especially appreciate this new feature when you need to share a video with commentary and music. Your team will be able to watch the screen simultaneously, without echo or synchronization issues. You can use this new feature on Android devices running version 10+ and iOS devices running version 13+. Simply enable “Share screen with audio” in the “More actions” options.
Highlight the most important
In live presentations, many of us like to use a laser pointer to help emphasize the most important points to the audience. Now you can use it in PowerPoint Live as well. Additionally, you can write on the presentation or permanently highlight certain parts of it. Do you have jokers on your team who might maliciously add something to your slide? No worries. Only the active moderator can create and display edits.
Put a stop to the language barrier
Do you have international clients? Thanks to a new feature, you can be even closer to them. Teams allows participants to translate individual slides in PowerPoint Live. You don't have to translate anything yourself or pay for an interpreter's work. You can now handle international meetings without awkward moments. Currently, translation is possible into nineteen languages, and more will be added gradually.
Record every detail about the participants
The attendance dashboard provides a perfect overview of your meeting or webinar. This allows you to check the ratio of registered and attending participants after it ends. You can also see if they participated in the entire meeting or just a portion. All of this is presented in the user-friendly Teams interface, offering clear analytics and data records. Perfect your future meetings. In the meeting details, click on the „Attendance“ tab to find the participant dashboard.
Offer clients an extra service
Imagine this scenario: You are an interior designer and have prepared several kitchen designs for your client. With the new Share-to-stage feature, your client can place your designs in their background, allowing them to interact with the future space and better appreciate all the details. And you'll find similar help in almost every creative profession. Offer your customers an exceptional and distinctive approach.
Teach online like a pro
Teams has also worked on integration with the Canvas Network learning management system. Educators can now take their record-keeping to the next level and create class teams based on the list of students enrolled in specific courses. Each class team will have corresponding user roles, with students and educators able to navigate to their respective class teams directly from their Canvas courses. They can use the desktop, mobile, or web platform.
Enjoy a worry-free vacation
Are you going on vacation or will you be away from your computer for a few days? Set up an automatic reply that is essentially the same as the one you regularly set up in your email client. The advantage is that your out-of-office status will sync with the automatic replies located in your Outlook calendar.
Get the most out of Teams with Microsoft 365
You can communicate via video calls through a multitude of available applications. However, in addition to the mentioned improvements, the biggest advantage of Teams is its integration with the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Thanks to this connection, besides online calls, you can manage your entire organization, file sharing, task assignment, or sending invoices.
With Opium Systems solutions, you will digitize your records so that you have an overview of everything that is happening, has happened, or will happen in your company. The Microsoft 365 ecosystem is the ideal solution for modern businesses that value secure and understandable record-keeping. If your business has a specific focus, besides the aforementioned, you will certainly appreciate tools such as Power Apps, Publisher, Power Point, Yammer, and My Analytics.
Don't worry about the system changes. We will help you transition to Microsoft 365, including migration and adoption preparation. We will train new users in your company or design and implement solutions tailored to your needs. There are many possibilities, just dive in headfirst!
