Microsoft Teams is fast becoming the perfect tool for the hybrid workforce. Modes of work are changing, and Microsoft knows it. Updates are constant, and these are just the latest. How will they help your business? Let’s find out.
Search experience
Search is essential to Teams. Conversations and group chats can get repurposed for new topics and become quite long. Years-long. Thankfully Teams has redesigned its search to be more intuitive. This allows you to find your messages, people, and your responses faster. This change is driven by artificial intelligence that is based on the content services you interact with the most.
Workgroups management
Organizing workgroups will be much easier with the new “Manage Users”. This tool will allow you to manage all the users you need in one place. It also includes settings for guests and external users.
Font: Microsoft teams website
Teams’ rooms for Surface Hub
Microsoft is quickly adapting to the new workplaces of the world. Functions from desktop Teams and Teams rooms (MTR) are being added to Meeting Space. The meeting controls have been improved, such as scenes in “Together mode”, large gallery, live reactions, PowerPoint Live, Whiteboard, and chat bubbles. The Whiteboard tool has also been improved. Now it is much cleaner and, more spacious and with a more modern look.
Photo: Microsoft teams website
Teams Admin Centre
Teams Admin Centre is a self-managed platform that Microsoft will launch at the end of the year. The platform will oversee remote monitoring and managing the Teams Rooms experience.
Big news for Teams Phone
To allow much more mobility, Teams has made several improvements to its mobile app. You can now transfer calls seamlessly between your devices, such as moving it from your desktop to your mobile and vice versa. The great thing about this is that the call will not suffer any interruption.
Teams have also incorporated a spam prevention feature. This uses some advanced techniques to identify spam calls.
Can you answer Teams calls in the car?
One piece of great news is that you can now answer your business calls while on the road. Apple CarPlay is compatible with Teams so you can join calls and meetings using vehicle controls or hands-free with Siri. You can also transcribe and record calls with Teams Phone. Handy!
Smart cameras
Soon you will be able to enjoy some more futuristic features from Teams. It’s being updated to support smart cameras. These cameras will be supplied by partners like Jabra, Neat, Poly, and Yealink. These cameras will monitor for active speakers, along with support for multiple video transmissions with facial recognition. This last feature includes tracking facial movements and gestures to detect who is speaking.
This under-the-hood advancement will make it that much easier to level up your business’s hybrid work model. The big goal is to have no difference between regular and online meetings.
It is proposed that in 2022 Teams will manage to control issues such as lighting. Using artificial intelligence, the goal is for the Platform to be able to make lighting corrections in real-time, while the meeting is taking place.
PowerPoint in Microsoft Teams
This great collaboration means you can present without opening PowerPoint. You only need to open PowerPoint Live, simplifying the experience of presenting remotely. It also you to progress through the slides while viewers share their reactions to a presentation, such as an applause and hearts.
How do I show a PowerPoint in Microsoft Teams?
To use this new option, connect PowerPoint Live with Teams. It is as simple as pressing the “Present in Teams” button (in the top right). You’ll automatically have access to your meeting from within Teams.
With all these updates, Microsoft Teams is looking to become the best tool to support your transition into hybrid work. What kind of needs do you think Teams should cover to improve your daily work? Do you think the future of work will be hybrid?