Based on your feedback, we continue to add new capabilities on a regular basis to make Microsoft Teams an even more powerful hub for teamwork. Here’s a summary of the main updates that have rolled out or have started to roll out in the last few weeks.
Communicate more effectively with new chat functionality
Skype for Business contacts are coming to Teams – We’re importing your contact list from Skype for Business Online to Teams. Now, all your contacts and groups that you created in Skype for Business will show up in Teams under your contact list. To access your contacts, simply click on “Chat” in the left navigation and then on “Contacts”. Here, you can also add new contacts or create new contact groups.
In this first step, only contacts from your organization will be imported. Federated contacts from outside your organization will be added at a later point.
Access your Skype for Business contacts in Teams
Unified Presence between Teams and Skype for Business – Presence states for users (i.e. available, busy or in a call) will now be aggregated between Teams and Skype for Business. This ensures that a user has a single presence state regardless of the app and the device they use. For this functionality, the underlying Skype for Business account that is connected to the Teams user needs to be hosted in Skype for Business online.
Out of office message – On vacation or travel? Your out of office status and message will now show up in Microsoft Teams when people hover over your people card. Your coworkers will also get a reminder that you’re out of office when they @ mention you or send you a private chat.
Out of Office messages in Microsoft Teams
Skype for Business Interop with Persistent Chat – As companies upgrade from Skype for Business to Teams, we expect users in some companies to use both apps at the same time. To ensure continued productivity, we’ve added the ability for Teams users to communicate with other users who are using Skype for Business (both online or on-prem). Teams users can now also view the full interop chat history across their Microsoft Teams clients. For this functionality, the underlying Skype for Business account that is connected to the Teams user needs to be hosted in Skype for Business online.
Chat between a Teams and a Skype for Business user
Improved notifications about calls – If you have a missed call or a new voicemail, you'll start seeing a notification in your Activity feed. When you click on a missed call notification, you’ll be taken to the call history tab from where you can easily call the person back. When you click on a new voicemail notification, you’ll be taken to the Voicemail tab, where you'll be able to listen to your message or review a transcript. Please note that you will only see these notifications if you have a calling plan.
Collaborate more effectively
Collaborate securely with anyone in Microsoft Teams with guest access – We’ve rolled out the ability to add anyone as a guest in Microsoft Teams. This means that anyone with a business or consumer email account, such as Outlook.com, Gmail.com or others, can participate as a guest in Teams with full access to team chats, meetings and files.
Previously, anyone with an Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) account could be added as a guest, and now anyone with an email address can be added to a team. All guests in Teams are covered by the same compliance and auditing protection as the rest of Office 365, and can be managed securely within Azure AD.
Read the full announcement for all details
You can now add anybody with a consumer account as a guest in Teams
Support for new languages
Teams is getting smarter. We now support Indonesian, Romanian, and Vietnamese!
More channels per team - You're now able to create up to 200 channels per team (this includes channels you've deleted). Go forth and make channels!
Work with confidence: new features for IT admins
New Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center including Messaging Policies - To enable admins to better manage the various aspects of the service, we have started to roll out a new Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center that provides you with a unified experience to manage both Teams and Skype for Business. The new admin center provides you with additional functionality including the ability to manage messaging policies on a user level. Read the full announcement for all details.
Retention policies – As an admin, you can now use the Office 365 security and compliance center to set retention policies for Teams – helping your organizations to stay complaint with regulatory obligations around preservation of documents and records. With retention policies for conversations, chats, and channel messages, you can decide proactively whether to retain content, delete content, or both, and then retain or delete the content based on a time duration. You can apply a single Teams policy to the entire organization or just specific users or specific teams. and decide proactively whether to retain content or delete content – for the entire organization, specific locations or user or specific teams. Read the full announcement for all details.
Install Microsoft Teams using MSI – Admins can now use MSI files (32-bit and 64-bit) to remotely deploy Microsoft Teams so that users do not have to manually download the Teams app. This enables organizations to leverage System Center Configuration Manager, Group Policy, or any 3rd party distribution mechanisms for broad deployments of Microsoft Teams. Learn more
New features available on Teams iOS & Android apps
The features Skype for Business Interop with persistent chat, unified presence between Teams and Skype for Business as well as contact groups have started to roll out on mobile clients as well.
Guest access on mobile – Guest access and account switching is now available on iOS and Android, and on unmanaged and managed devices. For managed Android devices, make sure you’re on the latest versions of the Authenticator and Company Portal apps.
You can now easily switch between different tenants you’re a member off.
Let us know what you think!
Try the new features and provide feedback using the feedback link in the lower left corner of Microsoft Teams. If you have suggestions on how to make Teams better, please submit your idea via User Voice or vote for existing ideas to help us prioritize the requests. We read every piece of feedback that we receive to make sure that Microsoft Teams meets your needs.
—Anne Michels, @Anne_Michels, Group Product Manager Microsoft Teams
— Christian Schacht, senior product marketing manager Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business
