The number of Microsoft Teams daily active users continues to increase: in April 2020 they were 75 million and now they are 115 million.
What users seem to appreciate the most is not only that from Teams they can manage calls, chats, and meetings, but they can leverage on it as a collaborative platform taking advantage of many tools and integrated apps.
Stay updated on Microsoft Teams’ news is fundamental to take the most out of this platform and increase meeting engagement and productivity.
So let’s summarize the main news announced for December 2020!
POLLS IN MEETINGS
Engaging meetings participants will be easier with new polls in Teams. You can create them in advance or launch them during your calls and a pop-up will appear in participants Teams windows.
Create a poll has never been so simple, as you do not need any third-parties app. You just need to install and configure the new extension available in Teams with an administrative profile. Alternatively, you can also create polls with the Forms app.
TEAMS PHONES
Your calling and meeting experience in Teams from your mobile device will be improved thanks to this update. It may happen that while you’re out of office, you have meetings planned on your Teams’ calendar… Microsoft has introduced a dedicated button that allows you to join the meeting or the call directly from your Teams Phones calendar.
Moreover, if the call has been created in a Teams channel with the Meet Now option, anyone in that channel will be able to join, even if he/she has not been invited before.
Other features available from the mobile:
- together mode view
- 3×3 layout
- background blur
- when in mute, you can select the button request to speak as you have using the computer.
- ask Cortana, Microsoft’s digital assistant, to join meetings and present them
- dictate messages from mobile phones.
Starting from 2021 it will be also possible to transfer a call from PC to mobile decreasing the data usage during meetings. This will be amazing especially when working remotely!
NOISE SUPPRESSION
Whether you work in the office or from home, background noise during calls or meetings is always annoying and distracts participants. Microsoft has implemented real-time AI-based noise suppression which automatically removes unwelcome background noises. People who have already tested it said it works like a charm!
BETTER LEVERAGING SCREEN AND CALLS
Thanks to this last Teams update you can choose from many new different together mode scenes to create a new experience with all the participants. Now you can see participants in one screen and the presentation slides on a second screen because Teams Rooms now support dual screens.
Moreover, if needed in some particular environment, for example, healthcare, from the administration profile you can decide to automatically answer calls without clicking any button.
CALL MERGE AND SPAM IDENTIFICATION
While you’re on a call with someone (or a group call), you may need to ask someone else a question. Now you can make a call while you are still in another one, and merge them together.
Another important feature will be spam identification: Teams will identify potential spam calls to avoid annoying interruption; while Teams will digitally attest your outgoing calls to prevent them from being rejected by external recipients.
PIN POSTS
Sometimes you need to pin a message that is important to you, as you need to keep it visible and highlighted… This is now possible in Teams and you can also put that pinned message in one channel, in the information panel to be visible for all members.
SET PRESENCE STATUS
With this new update, you can manage your presence status, setting it also for specific dates and times in the future.
CARPLAY SUPPORT
Soon you will be able to connect your Microsoft Teams to your CarPlay to easily answer calls and join meetings when you are driving, also with the assistance of Siri.
More features will soon be available and in the early 2021, we’ll have a thrilling piece of news to share: our contact center will be certified for Microsoft Teams! Stay tuned!!