Last month at Microsoft Mechanics live, Microsoft Ignite unveiled its 2020 plans for collaboration platform, Teams.
Multi-window Chat
In 2020, Teams users will be able to pop out chats, documents, calls and meetings, making it easier to communicate. This means you will be able to use the rest of Teams, while chatting and meeting in a separate tab. A simple change that will improve everyday communication for the Microsoft community.
Private Channels - This feature is available now
Previously when it came to sensitive information being discussed on Teams, there was no way to secure channels, giving access to select users. This new feature now gives users the functionality of easily creating private channels, that can only be accessed by select members of a team. Not only does this keep certain conversations confidential, but also supports productivity by creating focused space subsets for groups to work in, without having to create another Team
Improved Safety
Safe Links, powered by Office 365 ATP, protects Teams users from harmful links and threats in real time. Teams will perform a time-of-click verification when a URL is shared in a private chat or channel. Along with many other security and compliance features, Safe Links is said to become available at the end of this year.
Tasks in Teams
Powered by Planner, the new Tasks Tab will combine and organise assigned tasks from Planner, Outlook and Teams into a single view. Set to be available in early 2020, Tasks will have multiple views to choose from, so that each user can organise their workload in a way that best supports them.
Pinned Channels
In Microsoft Teams, each channel is built around a certain topic, like a department name, or project name. Each organisations channel structure will look different, with users often required to work across multiple channels. The new pinned channels feature allows you to pin your most used channels to the top of your screen for quick access. This feature is expected to be released before the end of 2019.
Watch the full update from Aya Tange, Microsoft Teams Product Manager, here.
Meetings
A large number of exciting new updates will be applied to Meetings for the Microsoft Community. Live captions functionality is now available to not only make Teams more inclusive for the hearing impaired or those with low language proficiency, but also support collaboration in noisy 'work spaces'. Scheduling assistant is now also readily available directly in the meetings screen, and syncs in real time with your Office 365 calendar.
Microsoft Whiteboard
For the modern workplace, one of the most forward thinking features released within Microsoft Teams is the new Content Camera and Teams Rooms. The Content Camera uses AI technology to identify analog whiteboards in meeting spaces to improve inclusiveness for virtual attendees.
These improvements include:
- Identifying and 'zooming in' on whiteboards within a meetings space through your camera.
- Identifying text on the whiteboard, and enhancing the colour of the text to be clear and easily read.
- Pinning main speakers to the screen.
- Removing distractions such as someone walking in front of the camera, by making them transparent.
- Capturing and digitising thoughts added to the whiteboard.
A few other great features:
- Team tags - You can now notify an entire team at once. For example @marketing or @softwaretdev, so that no ones misses out.
- Cross channel posting - Now you can select multiple locations to post, making important announcements to stand out.
- Integrations - Integration between Outlook and Teams has vastly improved, so you are now able to share emails and attachments, directly from one system into another.
Our team can help with your Microsoft Teams
Whether your goal is to run a simple installation of Teams or a fully-integrated version connected to your CRM and unified communication system with custom dashboards, our Technology Consulting team is available to make your Microsoft Teams implementation and staff training program a success.
Give us a call on 1300 307 907 or contact us via the form below.
