Microsoft Teams never stops its improvement process to provide always the best user experience. Even in these summer months, Microsoft has announced several features focused on increasing participants’ engagement during meetings. 

 

Have you lost some of them? Don’t worry, we got you covered! In this article we have summarized the most important ones, to help you take full advantage of Teams for your business meetings and webinars and improve your attendees’ experience:

  • “Lock the meeting” option – This new feature allows organizers to block latecomers who want to join started meetings: a dedicated message informs them they are not allowed to join anymore. This solution is helpful to avoid speakers’ distractions and at the moment is available only when using the Teams desktop app.
  • Mobile layout optimization – A large gallery view is now available also for mobile devices. This helps you and your attendees engage better with your meetings from any place.
  • Automatic meeting recordings – Now in the settings tabs of the Desktop or Mobile Teams App it is possible to activate the “record automatically” option to auto-record a meeting in Teams when the first participant of your organization joins it and then save the recorded file in your corporate OneDrive or SharePoint account.
  • Live transcription in English-US and recording search – Thanks to this new feature, your participants can keep track of what was said during your meeting, especially in the event they join late the meeting. Thanks to this feature, users can search the recorded meeting in Teams by using Microsoft Search: through the same search tab in Teams they use to find other file types, they’ll be able to find recorded meetings in a moment. This search is based on the words included in the live transcription.
  • Virtual laser pointer and slide transcription on PowerPoint Live – When slides are shared your speaker can point a virtual laser to indicate in the slides what he/she is talking about, making the meeting much more interesting. With PowerPoint Live there is also now a featured participant can access by clicking on the “more options’  three dots, which allows them to better understand your speech by viewing the slides in one of the 19 available languages. These improvements state that Microsoft is struggling to always add new inclusive features.
  • New message notification – Now,  during meetings, it isn’t necessary to open the chat to view new messages: when a new message arrives a pop-up notification appears on the screen to inform you instantly.
  • Lower all hands option – This option allows meeting organizers and presenters to lower all hands by clicking one button in the participant area. This is useful when all attendees’ questions are handled during meetings. 
  • Unmute for questions – During online meetings, often participants are muted by organizers and presenters but with this new feature, the attendee who raised his/her hand and wants to speak can unmute him/herself without waiting for the permission of the presenter.
  • Spotlight up to 7 participants – Now it’s possible to pin more than one person simultaneously on desktop and mobile devices. This option, settable by organizers and presenters, allows to increase attendees’ attention and focus it on some specific users. Their profile picture or their video are pinned in a dedicated area on the screen.
  • Attendance Dashboard – After a Teams meeting or a webinar, now a dashboard shows insights on the meeting: the number of people registered and participants and key information about them, such as name, duration of participation, join time, leave time, and role. This is useful for reporting and analyzing needs.
  • Dynamics 365 Marketing connection – After an online meeting in Teams, the marketing team can set up follow-up customized emails for the attendees. 

 

Are you ready to try these new Microsoft Teams features? To know also how you can fulfill customer expectations by handling professionally your UC in Teams, contact us here. We will be glad to know your project and expectations in moving Voice to Microsoft Teams!