In this round of updates to Teams phones, we are excited to bring you features which translate some of the great features users can experience with Teams on their PC or mobile phone to their desk phones.
Add or Transfer Call to Device
One of the coolest features Teams has today is the ability to add or transfer calls and meeting across devices. Today if you are taking a meeting on your PC, you can see a prompt which suggests adding your mobile device to split the audio and video, or transferring completely. This comes in handy if you are in a call and need to move around away from your PC, you can seamlessly stay connected. With the new release, this functionality will come to Teams phones as well. Your phone will recognize you are in a call on another device and prompt you to transfer or add, letting you start your call from elsewhere and transfer to your desk phone.
Background replacement on video phones
One of our most popular features is now available for video phones, users can easily select from one of our prepopulated backgrounds during their video call to mask their physical settings and show some personality while collaborating.
Contacts in Microsoft Outlook are now available in read-only mode
If a user creates a contact within Microsoft Outlook, their information will now appear under the People app on the phone interface. While only phone numbers will appear today, users can search on the phone for contacts and easily call the people they may email or meet with using Outlook.
Live captions are now available for calls
This feature is super exciting for people who prefer visual queues when engaging with their stakeholders. Teams is now able to detect what is being said during a 1:1 call and present the text on the screen in real time. Please note that this functionality is only available in English at the time and is not available for phones within the government cloud.
Usability improvements on Teams phones
We’ve updated a few different areas of the Teams phones experience to improve how users interact with their calls and contacts.
When a boss or admin is in a call users can press the purple button touch target to see new options with respect to their contacts. Now a boss or admin can easily see their frequent contacts with instant options to see their call status or place an outgoing call to them.
If a contact has multiple numbers, the UI has now been updated to select from a drop-down menu for the intended contact method.
Lastly, we have a new screen which easily tells a user if they have no voicemails. A great message to see if you are having a particularly hectic week!
Support for Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) in pre-call screen
To facilitate quick responses for auto attendant scenarios, dial pad will be made available for early media scenarios.
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