Regardless of whether you are new to Microsoft Teams or a pro user, there is a multitude of new features coming to Microsoft Teams early this year that are set to improve productivity, allow cross-collaboration, and support each user's unique working requirements.
From exciting new mixed reality experiences to feature updates that will improve your productivity, here are just a few of the exciting new features set to hit Microsoft Teams early this year.
Introducing Mesh
Announced during Microsoft's annual Ignite conference in 2021, Microsoft Mesh is a complete virtual world that enables lifelike shared holographic experiences through mixed reality applications.
Microsoft innovation writer, John Roach, explains that "Mesh for Teams – which anyone will be able to access from standard smartphones and laptops to mixed-reality headsets – is designed to make online meetings more personal, engaging and fun. It’s also a gateway to the metaverse – a persistent digital world that is inhabited by digital twins of people, places and things."
Expected to roll out to preview mode early this year, Mesh for Teams will allow users in different physical locations to work together in virtual 3D spaces, with the aim of making collaboration 'personal and fun'.
Learn more about the concept of Microsoft Metaverse below.
New Live Event capabilities
Available to users with an Office 365 Enterprise E1, E3 or E5 licence, Microsoft Teams Live Events are set to release a range of new and improved features to preview in early 2022.
New features include:
- New Virtual Green Room enables organisers and presenters to meet prior to the live event, run through presentations, manage attendee settings and share content before the event starts.
- New Q&A in Teams feature enables a more structured question and answer experience for live events. Organisers and presenters can filter responses, moderate and dismiss questions and pin posts, such as a welcome message. Q&A in Teams will be available in preview in February.
- New Enhanced Controls for managing what attendees see to minimise distractions and keep the audience engaged during an event. This ensures that attendees will only see shared content and presenters that are brought on screen.
- New Co-organiser Ability is the ability to assign multiple organisers for webinars and meetings. There can be up to 10 different co-organisers assigned, and the co-organiser will have the same capabilities and permissions as the organiser, enabling them to do multiple tasks such as manage webinar and meeting options, create polls and control audio settings. This feature will be generally available by the end of the year.
Collaboration across boundaries with Teams Connect
Teams Connect (previously known as shared channels) will allow users to access channels from external tenants (for example, owned by a customer or partner) without having to switch out to that tenant. Employees who are invited to a Teams Connect channel are no longer required to become a team member or a guest account, enabling much more effective collaboration.
Teams admins rejoice - this new feature is designed with security in mind, allowing the host channels standard security policies to be applied when sharing, with admins from both tenants required to set up inbound access to specify who from the external tenant can participate.
The new Teams Connect channels can be shared with up to 50 teams and across unlimited organisations for real-time chat and collaboration.
Additional features to support your productivity:
- New Chat Density Feature - lets users customise the number of chat messages they see on the screen. 'Compact mode' lets users minimise the need to scroll up and down by fitting 50% more messages on the screen, whereas 'comfortable mode' keeps the chat display as it is in Teams today.
- Delay delivery of Messaging – Similar to 'delay delivery' in Outlook, users will be able to send a chat message at a time that suits them, and the message will be sent to the recipient at the scheduled time.
- Chat with yourself - enables users to send themselves a message, such as quick ideas or reminders.
- 800+ new emojis - to express exactly how you feel.
How Diamond IT can support you with Microsoft Teams
Our Business Technology Consulting team is available to make your Microsoft Teams implementation and staff training programs a success.
To ensure that your employees are getting the most from Microsoft Teams, including the new productivity features, in a way that is unique to your organisation, contact our team on 1300 307 907, today.
