Seemingly overnight, companies, families and classrooms were forced into a new way of meeting and interacting. Several software developers saw their meeting software gain popularity rapidly, as video calls and chats became mainstream. Microsoft Teams, already a popular venue for organizations, rolled out new features in April, just in time for the demand. From new capabilities to more intuitive controls for IT, the Microsoft Teams experience is getting more streamlined and feature-rich.
Even as business is looking to slowly get back to normal, many have now realized that remote and work-from-home models can work. This means more organizations may be looking at the money saving benefits of utilizing Teams for remote meetings.
- Microsoft has added the capability for more simultaneous videos, increasing the number of participants from 4 to 9 – more than doubling capacity. The feature will balance bandwidth across audio and video to provide the best experience for users. As of April this feature was still rolling out, but according to the schedule provided by Microsoft has likely rolled out nearly completely at the time of this writing.
- Perhaps inspired by classrooms everywhere, the “raise hands” feature is bound to make meetings more structured and orderly. Participants can digitally signal that they wish to speak, and a list of all participants will visually show the order in which people “raised their hands” – and when it is their turn to speak. As the number of video participants has increased, the raise hands should help to keep people from talking over one another, especially if there is a time lag on your connection.
- Those working from home understand the problem all too well – you are trying to be professional and you have laundry, kids toys or general clutter behind you. The new version of Microsoft Teams allows you to not only blur the image behind you, keeping the focus on you – but choosing a stock image to put behind you if you choose. In the near future it is expected that everyone will be able to upload a photo of their choosing for background.
- Those utilizing Android and iOS mobile devices will have the ability to utilize captioning (English only at the moment). If accessing from a loud location, captioning will allow for clearer communication and comprehension.
- Microsoft Live Events has been significantly boosted until July, allowing for 50 simultaneous events and 20,000 attendees looking in. Event duration is not set at 16 hours per event.
- Share system audio allows the presenter to share video or audio from their screen and allow all participants to listen in.
- An “end meeting” function will allow the moderator of the meeting to simultaneously end the session for everyone. While this may not seem especially meaningful at first, it can be very useful in certain settings where it may not be advisable for participants to continue to chat – such as a legal meeting, or even a classroom setting.
- The “call recording” feature allows the moderator to begin recording with the push of a button, and alerts all participants on their screen that they are being recorded. This is an easy way to take minutes, and covers possible privacy issues by making sure all participants are aware of the recording.
Finally, the enhanced control panel gives IT professionals extensive data about user experiences, allowing them to drill down to correct bandwidth or capacity issues.
For those learning to work remotely – or business owners looking to transition their business to a more flexible model – Microsoft Teams may be a powerful tool. Call Alliance IT today to discuss options, technologies, and trends which will help you to bring your productivity to the next level.
