Microsoft has continued to release updates and features. What are the best and most significant changes in MS Teams? Here’s our curated list with the hottest new features.
There are quite a few updates that you will want to be aware of! Some of the new changes will help you to collaborate better, improve your presentations, and make it easier to connect in meetings.
Microsoft has been hard at work lately releasing new updates and features. We are taking a look at some of the best and most significant changes in Microsoft Teams, to help you make the most of the updates.
Here’s our curated list with the top 7 new features
This is an exciting update for anyone who makes regular presentations or pitches to audiences using PowerPoint. You can now very easily share a PowerPoint presentation in a Microsoft Teams meeting.
Instead of sharing your screen in Teams and then opening up your PowerPoint presentation (which would have been the way to do this previously) you can now access the presentation from the Teams window, and make the most of PowerPoint Live by selecting a file under the new section of Share Content.
Microsoft shared that this update offers an entirely new remote presentation experience, for the benefit of both presenters and meeting attendees. The new feature combines the rich presenting capabilities of PowerPoint and the collaboration tools of Microsoft Teams.
Learn more about PowerPoint Live here.
Earlier this year, Microsoft announced that MS Teams now supports interactive meetings and webinars for up to 1,000 attendees, including rich presentation options, live reactions, and moderation controls.
Microsoft Teams users can also join view-only broadcast experiences for up to 20,000 people. Once a webinar grows to over 1,000 attendees, Teams will seamlessly scale to accommodate a 10,000-person view-only broadcast experience.
In Microsoft Teams, when you are about to meet with other people, you can click on the new Meet Now button right from your calendar tab, and you will see the option to Get a link to share with others.
Previously, you could start the meeting, and then you’d have to figure out how to invite people into the meeting. This new feature makes the invitation much more straightforward. You have the option to simply copy the sharing link and paste in a Teams message, or you can choose to Share via email, which makes use of your default email app.
Custom backgrounds are now available on iOS, to make your meetings more personalised or professional when you are using your phone.
Previously, you could only set up a custom background on your PC. This update is ideal for remote working and meetings on the go, to keep your background with a professional or corporate look when you join a meeting with your mobile device.
To set this up, before you join the meeting with your phone, click on the ‘Backgrounds effects’ option on the top left. You can then select from the available backgrounds from Microsoft, or upload your own background directly from your phone. You also get the option to blur your background, and make everything behind you subtly concealed.
Top tip: Don’t worry if the image looks reversed when you are trying out your custom background. All the attendees on the other side will see it the right way.
Live captions are a fantastic feature that was released recently. Captions allow participants to follow the conversation with more ease. This capability makes the meeting experience more inclusive for those with different levels of language proficiency and those who are hard of hearing, and it’s also useful if you are in a loud environment that interferes with the audio quality of the meeting.
To turn on live captions in MS Teams, you need to select the ‘more’ option (or click on the ellipsis) during a meeting, and click on Turn on live captions. As the captions are activated, you will be able to see the name of the person talking, which adds further clarity to the captioning experience.
Learn more about this feature in the video below.
Meeting organisers can now disable video feeds from specific attendees – as well as turning off the video feeds of all participants in a
call.
This new update is part of the host moderation controls, especially useful for webinars with many attendees. Hosts and attendees could enjoy a less distracting video conferencing experience by eliminating the vast collection of video feeds in a group call, and also prevent accidental presentation interruptions.
More about this update on Tech Radar.
Breakout rooms are designed to bring participants into small groups for lively conversation and sessions. Within breakout rooms in Microsoft Teams, organisers can assign people to rooms, and now they can also reassign participants even when rooms are opened.
Previously, you could only reassign when rooms were closed. Breakout room assignments also now persist over multiple sessions. These features are useful for efficiently managing discussions and ensuring the right participants are in each breakout.
Learn more about this new feature here.
Flexible work is here to stay and remote working continues to be the new normal. Hence, we can expect the experience of video meetings, online chats and remote communication tools to continue to evolve. In Microsoft Teams, collaboration capabilities will also continue to advance.
As business teams continue to operate in the digital space, these and other technologies will keep evolving quickly – and we at Euro Systems will be at the forefront of the digital revolution.
We are Microsoft Partners and we are constantly helping our customers to make the best of Microsoft 365 applications and cloud solutions.
Whether you need any help with staff training, or you are looking to explore the benefits of the Microsoft Cloud platform, our friendly team at Euro Systems is ready to assist. We will make sure your IT is in the best hands, and we will help your business to stay ahead of the competition with all the latest technology updates.
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