What’s new in Microsoft Teams – February update
Published Mar 01 2018 11:33 AM 22.6K Views
Microsoft

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 we introduced in February:

 

Communicate more effectively with new chat functionality

 

Share chat history – Often, conversations start with one person and then reach a moment where you need to add one or more people. To help you continue the conversation easily, you can share the chat history when you add somebody to a chat and decide how much history you want to share.

 

Hyperlink custom text in messagesHyperlink custom text in messages

@mentions somebody in a chat – In addition to being able to @mention somebody in a channel conversation, you can now also do so in a 1:1 conversation or a group chat. When you type @ before their name, the person will receive a notification in their activity feed making it easier for you to get someone’s attention.

 

Mute a chat – In addition to hiding or leaving a chat, you can now also mute a chat. This feature lets you put a temporary hold on notifications for a particular chat. Don't worry—you'll still receive new messages; you just won't be alerted.

 

Mute a chat to put a temporary hold on notificationsMute a chat to put a temporary hold on notifications

Quick reply to a chat message from notifications – You can now respond to an incoming chat message directly from the toast notification. Simply click on “Reply” when the notification pops up and type your response. The reply will be limited to text-only and 1,000 characters. This functionality is available for the Windows and Mac apps. 

 

Hyperlink custom text in messagesHyperlink custom text in messages

Restore a deleted channel –  If you have deleted a channel by mistake, you can now restore any channel you deleted up to 21 days. Simply click Manage team and then open the Channels tab to see and restore deleted channels. By default, any member of the team can restore a channel. If you want to restrict deleting and restoring channels to team owners only, you can change this in the team’s settings.Restore a deleted channel directly in the Teams UIRestore a deleted channel directly in the Teams UI

Collaborate more effectively

 

Include information from Visual Studio Team Services (VSTS) in your conversations – Now you can have a conversation about VSTS work items right in a channel or chat without the need to include a screenshot or a hyperlink to the information – in the same way that you can add an emoji or GIF. To get started, go to the Store in Teams and install it for yourself or for a team. You’ll then see VSTS as an option to choose from when you click on “…” at the bottom of the compose box. Read the full blog post for details  

Include information from VSTS in your conversationsInclude information from VSTS in your conversations

 

New features available on Teams iOS & Android apps

New chat functionality - Share chat history, @mentions in chat, mute chat, quick reply from notifications are all available on iOS and Android as well.

 

Share chat history (left) and Mute chat (right) on mobileShare chat history (left) and Mute chat (right) on mobile

 

Share content from other apps into Teams – You can share text, photos, and files from other apps into Teams on both iOS and Android apps now. You can select a chat or channel to post the shared content into.

 

Sharing an image into a channel on Teams app on iOSSharing an image into a channel on Teams app on iOS

You can now create a team on mobile – Simply tap on the “Manage teams” icon on the Teams tab and then the “+” icon to create a new team. You can then add members to the team and promote them to owners.

 1st step: click on the manage icon1st step: click on the manage icon2nd step: click on the "+" icon2nd step: click on the "+" icon3rd step: add a name and description3rd step: add a name and description

 

PSTN calling and voicemail – PSTN calling and voicemail are now also available on mobile for Enterprise Voice licensed customers.

 

Meetings on mobile – You can mute other participants on mobile now. Also, external users invited to a Teams meeting can now join via the mobile apps too.

 

Learn how customers are using Teams

UNSW delivers innovative learning experiences and increases student engagement with Microsoft Teams – The University of New South Wales (UNSW) in Sydney is looking at Microsoft Teams as a game changer. “We saw a disparity between the learning experiences of students who attended lectures in person and those who accessed online recordings. We felt these web students were missing out. With Teams, they could stream video lectures, take and view live-synchronized notes, ask questions from their phones or PCs, and access class materials all from within the Teams environment - the fluid, interactive nature of Teams has dramatically enhanced student engagement.” Read the full case study

 

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, senior product marketing manager Microsoft Teams

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

15 Comments
Iron Contributor

As always - Awesome progress!  Thank you for the monthly recap!

 

Quick one - is the Share chat history option only triggered when adding a person to a Group Chat?  It is not giving me the option when I add a person to a Direct, 1:1 Chat (it just automatically creates a new Group Chat).  Seems to only work when adding people to a Group Chat - is there intent to add the option when adding somebody to a 1:1 chat?

Bronze Contributor

The popup toast for quick replies in Chats is awesome! I noticed it yesterday.

The "Share chat history" feature would be much more useful if it adjusted the permissions on any files shared as well, just saying :)

Copper Contributor

Great updates! Thank you. Any news on  being able to duplicate a Team? Saves time for Teams with similar or same channels. Thanks again.

Microsoft

@John Francis - yes - for now, it is for Group Chat (2+ people already in the chat). We are working on bringing this to 1:1 chat as well.

Iron Contributor

Thanks @Praveen Maloo!

Copper Contributor

These are some nice updates. One weird thing started happening after the update where it now announces unknown phone users by reading out their phone number. This is quite annoying as many of our users dial in from the computer for the webshare and use their mobile or desk phone for the phone conference. 

 

Is there any way to turn the announce feature off? Ideally phone callers could also identify themselves when they call in thru a pin number, but I think that is a roadmap item.

Microsoft

Hi @Kevin Owens, I have not heard of this issue yet. Can you please open a support ticket?

Brass Contributor

Share a picture into the Teams conversation and it is not placed in SharePoint as other conversation attachment would be. And it appear not to be searchable in Teams. And when viewing the picture in Teams there is a download option, but file is stored as MicrsoftTeams-image.png, and non of its original file properties are preserved so it becomes unknown as to who, when or where it was taken.

Copper Contributor

Last week I attended a Microsoft event where I asked when Teams would allow us to communicate with external suppliers who don't have any sort of Microsoft account. They advised that it would be this week. I have some questions on that:

 

1) Can someone please advise how to get notified when that happens (is there something I can subscribe to? Does joining this list do that for me automatically?)

2) What do we need to do at our end to make use of that new functionality - do we just update the Teams client on our PCs and the magic happens?

 

Microsoft

Hi @Phill Edwards, we announce changes through various channels: the main one is the message center in the Office 365 admin center. We also landed a blog post on guest access which describes how to enable the feature: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams-Blog/Collaborate-securely-with-anyone-in-Micr...

@Phill Edwards they were probably referring to the "federation" feature, which is still not available. Currently you can invite external participants as Guest users, but they need to have either Azure AD account or MicrosoftID.

Microsoft

Thank you for the great Monthly re-cap.

 

QQ - any update on the Chat Retention policy (Feature ID: 24188)? I have not been able to find any roadmap updates since the estimated Q4 CY2017 estimated release. Thanks.

Microsoft

Hi @Ross Yamada, retention policies are on the roadmap for end of Q1. Please see the roadmap here: https://skypeandteams.blob.core.windows.net/artefacts/Skype%20for%20Business%20to%20Teams%20Capabili...

Thanks,

Anne

Brass Contributor

I can't make or receive calls in the Teams iOS app, whereas, I can with the desktop app. The iOS app does not have a dial pad in the Calls tab and it doesn't ring when receiving a PSTN call. Is this a known issue?

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