Microsoft Teams is now a complete meeting and calling solution
Published Aug 24 2018 08:00 AM 219K Views
Microsoft

Last year we announced plans for Microsoft Teams to become the primary client for Intelligent Communications in Office 365, replacing Skype for Business Online over time. Today, we are pleased to announce we have completed our roadmap for bringing Skype for Business Online features and functionality into Teams, and Teams is ready to meet your messaging, meeting and calling needs.

 

Today, more than 200,000 organizations are using Teams, including nearly 70% of enterprise customers who use Skype for Business Online.  We encourage your organization to join them and move to Teams today.

 

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Teams delivers Intelligent Communications

In recent weeks, we added many new communications features to Teams.

  • Messaging: Teams now offers unified presence, federated chat, and contacts, as well as in-line translation capabilities that allow team members to converse in their native language.
  • Meetings: Cloud-based meeting recording, support for larger meetings of up to 250 participants; federated meetings, which provides the ability to host meetings across multiple organizations; meeting lobby so you can qualify dial-in callers before they join your meeting; and dial-in fallback support to ensure people can join a meeting even in the event of network issues.  For additional information on new meeting capabilities in Teams, check out Meet Now with Microsoft Teams.
  • Calling: Boss and delegate support, call queues, auto-attendant, consultative transfer, do-not-disturb breakthrough, the ability to forward a call to a group, and out of office support. In addition, Direct Routing enables you to bring your own telephone service to Teams, which along with Calling Plans provides you additional choice for dial tone in Microsoft Teams. 
  • Enhancements to the devices ecosystem for Teams: An update for Skype Room Systems that enables them to join Teams meetings; Teams app for Surface Hub in the Microsoft Store; Teams Conferencing Gateway, which allows you to use existing Skype for Business certified SIP-based phones with Teams; and USB HID Support for Teams, enabling customers to answer, end calls and control mute and volume using USB peripherals. In addition, cloud video interop services to support Teams meetings with existing VTC systems are underway with offerings from Pexip, Polycom, and Blue Jeans to be generally available later this calendar year.

 

Make the move to Teams

Over the last few weeks we have released resources, tools and guidance to help current Skype for Business Online customers with their upgrade to Teams.  This includes:

  • Self-serve guidance featuring a proven success framework for upgrading to Teams, including best practices, guidance, and resources for customers who are ready to use Skype for Business and Teams side-by-side or to fully transition to Teams.
  • Upgrade tools in the Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center that enable customers to migrate users from Skype for Business to Teams. These tools are starting to roll out now and are expected to be available to all Office 365 customers later this calendar year.

Not every organization has dedicated IT resources to manage their transition to Teams. In order to assist these customers, we will begin offering them Microsoft-driven automated upgrades to Teams. We will communicate directly with customers regarding their upgrade options through email and in the Office 365 Message Center. 

 

To learn more about how to upgrade to Teams, and to get started today, visit the following resources:

 

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