What’s New in Microsoft Teams: 3rd Anniversary Edition
Published Mar 19 2020 06:00 AM 253K Views
Microsoft

Microsoft Teams turns 3 this week, and we’re inspired by all the stories you’ve shared of how your teams are using it to chat, call, meet and collaborate. Read on for the latest coming to Teams!

 

Teams Meetings

Great audio quality even under networks with high packet loss 
When joining meetings over a poor WiFi or cellular connection—whether taking a call on the go or joining a meeting from a crowded conference hotel—high data packet loss can adversely affect the audio experience. With our new algorithmic improvements in Teams, you now experience greater audio quality even under congested and lossy networks. Through a combination of smart jitter buffer logic, burst loss detection, and triggering of redundant transmissions, we can ensure smooth audio playback, even under high burst loss. Many customers are already noticing an improved audio experience, especially given the overloaded networks we are seeing today. These improvements have rolled out to Teams customers worldwide.


Keep the focus on you with Background Blur for iOS (coming soon)
Keep the focus on you and not what’s behind you! We are excited to bring this frequently utilized feature from the desktop to your iOS devices! You can expect to see this feature appear on your iPhones and iPads in the coming weeks.

blur ios.gif

 

Easily conduct interviews, virtual healthcare visits, and more with the Bookings App in Teams
The Bookings app offers a simple way to schedule and conduct appointments with external participants via Microsoft Teams, such as job candidate interviews, client meetings, healthcare virtual visits, virtual financial consultations, customer service appointments in retail, and more. Customers can manage multiple departments and staff in a single scheduling experience and can simply schedule virtual appointments with external attendees. External attendees receive a customized email invite with details of the appointment and a Teams meeting link to join, with the ability to join via their web browser in one-click, or using the Teams mobile app. The Bookings app in Teams will be available in the coming weeks. Learn more about how the Bookings app is helping to empower healthcare providers and patients here.

bookings app.png

 

Over the last few weeks, more people have been turning to Teams for their online meetings. So, in addition to the capabilities above that are generally available or shipping soon, we also want to share more innovation coming to Teams meetings in the next few months.


Raise hands in Teams meetings when you have something to say
Excuse me! The new “raise hands” feature in Teams allows meeting attendees to identify that they wish to speak, making it easier to actively participate in large meetings. Everyone will see a visual cue on the attendee’s video feed, as well as in the participant list, and can be sure to give them the room to participate in the conversation at hand.

raise hand 11.jpg

 

Reduce background noise in Teams meetings with noise suppression
Whether it be ambient noise from a café, noisy typing in a conference room, or construction noise outside your home office, unwanted background noise can be quite distracting in your Teams meetings. We are excited to announce real-time noise suppression, a new feature in Teams that will automatically remove unwelcome background noise during your meetings.


We will soon bring real-time noise suppression to Teams meetings and calls, and we are excited to announce that beginning soon, noise suppression will be generally available for recorded video content in Stream. Now it’s easy to eliminate distracting background noise in training videos or communications, so you can focus on the person speaking, not what’s happening around them.


Noise suppression works by analyzing an individual’s audio feed and uses specially trained deep neural networks to filter out noise and retain only the speech signal. While traditional noise suppression algorithms can only address simple stationary noise sources such as fan noise, our AI-based approach learns the difference between speech and noise, and is able to suppress all forms of noise including non-stationary sources that we commonly encounter in our meetings such as typing, eating chips, and road noise, just to name a few.

 

The new Satin codec makes the Teams meeting and calling experience even better
With our new Satin codec as part of Teams, you can do more with less. Teams will soon be able to deliver crystal clear wideband audio with as little as 7 kbps! While our Wi-Fi and cellular connections are leaps and bounds faster than this, Teams can continue to deliver the best audio experiences during periods of congestion and network handoffs without having to sacrifice video or screen sharing quality. We are excited to introduce this brand new and completely developed in-house codec with our Teams users in the coming months.

 

Teams Calling
Microsoft 365 Business Voice available in the US on April 1st
Small and medium businesses can now make and receive phone calls from Teams with Microsoft 365 Business Voice. Back in November, Microsoft 365 Business Voice, a cloud-based phone system for small and medium businesses, was launched in the UK and Canada. Starting on April 1st, Business Voice will be available in to purchase in the U.S. Business Voice provides the ability to make and receive calls from any phone number in Microsoft Teams, and is powered by the same robust technology, reliability, and security of our industry leading Enterprise Voice solution. In addition to the enterprise-grade features included in Business Voice, we made it easy for small and medium businesses to buy and setup. Learn more here.


Starting on April 1st, Business Voice will be available to purchase in the U.S. for $20/user/mo. Also, on that date Business Voice with a third-party calling plan will be available in over 70 countries.


Teams Devices
RealWear headset for hands-free Teams collaboration
RealWear, industry leader in head-mounted, ruggedized solutions is partnering with Microsoft Teams to support digital transformation in manufacturing and other industrial environments. For many Firstline Workers in manufacturing and other industrial environments, keeping their hands free and minimizing distractions are critical factors to their safety and success. This partnership brings together RealWear devices and Microsoft Teams to empower Firstline Workers while keeping their hands free. Teams on RealWear devices will be available later this year. Learn more here


Teams Walkie Talkie on the Samsung XCover Pro
Now there is no need to carry around a cell phone and a walkie-talkie! Walkie Talkie is a new push to talk experience in Teams that enables clear voice communication over the cloud, turning employee or company-owned smart phones and tablets into a walkie talkie. The Galaxy XCover Pro with Microsoft Teams simplifies and empowers Firstline Workers and their organizations to communicate and collaborate using just one device and one platform.


The functionality, built natively into Teams, reduces the number of devices employees must carry, and lowers costs for IT. Unlike analog devices with unsecure networks, customers no longer have to worry about crosstalk or eavesdropping from outsiders. And since Walkie Talkie works over Wi-Fi or cellular data, it can be used across geographic locations. The capability will be available in the Teams mobile app and integrate with the newly unveiled Samsung Galaxy XCover Pro, a device built for workers on the front lines of any industry.


The XCover Pro will be available through Microsoft retail stores starting in mid-April, and Walkie Talkie in Teams will be available starting July. However, you can buy the phone and use the existing Teams functionality before Walkie Talkie functionality is available.

walkie talkie.png

 

Introducing Bose headsets for Teams
We are thrilled to welcome Bose to our Teams device category. As a well known and loved consumer headphone, customers can expect that sleek stylish design. The Bose Noise Cancellation 700 UC (NC700) will be Teams certified and available for purchase later this Spring.

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Teams collaborations bars let you transform your small spaces into collaborative workspaces!
Collaboration bars allow you to turn your focus rooms or smaller conference areas into high-quality, collaborative meeting spaces! These affordable, simple to install and easy to manage video conferencing solutions attach to displays, TVs or touchscreens to deliver high-quality, collaborative video meetings. Using one-touch or proximity join, users can seamlessly join meetings to share content and engage in whiteboarding sessions – all while experiencing clear, high-quality audio and video.


The VC210 from Yealink is now available for purchase, and the Poly Studio X Series will be coming soon.


To learn more about collaboration bars for Microsoft Teams read our blog here!

yealink and poly.png

 

New Teams phones from Poly
Meet the Poly CCX Series, a range of native Teams phones to help users to transform the way they communicate. The series offers a range models to choose from, starting with the CCX400 and up to the CCX600. You can personalize yours with a headset that suits your style or use the traditional handset. The Poly CCX series is available today.

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Device management experience in Teams admin center
Today, administrators have the ability to manage certified Microsoft Teams phones from the Microsoft Teams admin center. Coming soon, we will extend this support for Microsoft Teams room devices and collaboration bars. This will empower admins to perform key actions such as update settings, restart devices, gather logs, review device call quality data, and more.

 

Teams for Firstline Workers
Get ahold of the right on-shift employees using targeted communications 
Currently, with Targeted Communications in Teams, you can create tags to organize users manually based on attributes such as role or location. You can message everyone assigned to a tag in new chat or bring attention to a channel post by @mentioning the tag name. And coming soon, Teams takes the guess work out of knowing who is on-shift when needing to communicate as messages can be targeted to recipients based on their role and the shifts they are working. Users are automatically assigned to tags matching their schedule in the Shifts app in Teams, which allows for integration with major workforce management systems, including AMiON, JDA, and Kronos.

targeted comms.png

 

Workforce management integrations and Teams
Integrate Kronos Workforce Central v.8.1 with Shifts for the following scenarios: viewing schedule, publishing and requesting open shifts, swapping shifts, requesting time off and offering shifts. Check out the technical documentation here and the code on GitHub here.

 

New Capabilities in Shifts
Teams has made major upgrades to the Shifts experience for firstline managers and firstline workers. By freeing up time, managers and team members can spend more with customers instead of being administrators.


Schedule filtering gives users the option to filter by team members or schedule groups, making it easier to manage large shift schedules.

shifts filter.png

 

Recall shared schedule allows managers to recall single or multiple days of a shared schedule, in order to make any necessary changes.

recall schedule.png

 

The "Your shifts" view makes it possible for team members to quickly access their shift information without needing to scroll through the entire team schedule. . This will be the new default landing page for Shifts on the web and desktop for team members only. (The default Shifts view for managers will not change)

your shifts.png

 

And for team members using Android devices, they can easily send a chat to their coworkers who are also working at the same time from the Shifts app.

shifts mobile.png

In addition to the “…”drop down menu in the Shifts app, content to help end users navigate the Shifts experience is also available under popular topics in the Help section, titled ‘All about Shifts’.

 

Updates to Microsoft 365 Licensing for Firstline Workers 

We are introducing a new Firstline Worker SKU that has been designed to meet the core productivity needs and extend security and identity value to all workers. Learn more here

 

 

Teams Chat & Collaboration
Pop out Teams chats into multiple windows
We all have those days when you have several conversations you are participating in simultaneously. Now you will be able to pop out individual Teams chat conversations into a separate window, to help you streamline your workflow and more easily move between ongoing conversations.

popoutchat.gif


Access Teams even without an Internet connection
Now you can open and access Teams even when you are on an airplane without Internet access, or on a remote work site with terrible network conditions. Teams is enhancing the user experience for offline (no Internet connection) experiences and for low-bandwidth network environments. We are happy to announce that the first phase of multi-phase rollout is complete. Teams users will now be able to open Teams even when no network is available. You will be able to create and read messages, browse previously viewed channels, and to view calendar summaries. Pinned chats, pinned channels, and recently visited chats and channels will always be available offline.


Teams is also now optimized to work in a low- or poor-performing network scenarios. For example, users will now be able to send messages even with sub-optimal connectivity. If conditions are too poor to send a message, Teams will notify users of this and then save the message until the user has returned to a functioning network. This functionality is coming to Teams in the next few weeks.


Include up to 10,000 users in an individual team

We have raised the upper limit on individual team membership from 5,000 to 10,000 users. We are excited for this increase in team membership to power collaboration and process scenarios especially for large teams and organizations that rely on firstline workers. This limit will start rolling out to customers next month. 


Group chat with up to 250 people
Sometimes you need to kick off a big project chat with a large group, or organize an ad-hoc discussion with staff at an event, but it is unnecessary to start a new team; perhaps you don’t all work together on a regular basis, or maybe you need a communication channel with a large group of people at an event. Group chats will be able to accommodate up to 250 users! This limit will start rolling out to customers soon.


Teams & Skype Consumer chat and calling interoperability
Teams users will soon be able to find and communicate with users on the Skype consumer service, allowing businesses using Teams to engage with customers and colleagues on the iconic communications platform, across all clients including iOS and Android.


This new interoperability will allow Teams and Skype consumer users to chat and make calls using Voice over IP (VoIP) initiated by either client using an email address (phone number or Skype ID searches are not supported at this time.) For safety and security, Teams users can accept or decline first-time conversations with Skype users, and may block and unblock contacts.


This highly anticipated feature begins rolling out in Teams by the end of March. Learn more about Teams and Skype interoperability and how to enable this setting in the Teams admin center.

 
94 Comments
Steel Contributor

Pop out chats will be nice, but pop-out conversations (posts) is what is really needed. Hope that is in the pipeline.

Copper Contributor

Please give us a sidebar with better visibility for new messages/conversations.

Steel Contributor

What's not in Microsoft Teams yet - let's have a look through the top requests from UserVoice, some of which are themselves over three years old!

 

  • Multiple accounts - Working on it- Over 3 years old, "working on it" for almost exactly 3 years.
  • Multi-window for chats - In testing - Over 3 years old, "working on it" since August 2018.
  • Move a channel - On the backlog - Over 3 years old, "working on it" but then withdrawn.
  • Include Office365 calendar - Working on it - Over 3 years old, "working on it" since July 2018.
  • Compact mode - Under review - Over 3 years old, was "working on it" for most of that time (but zero evidence of any actual work despite numerous claims of progress) and now rolled backwards to "under review".
  • Archive channels - On the Backlog - Over 3 years old, was "working on it" for 15 months, now on backlog.
  • List users in channel - Working on it - Over 3 years old, "working on it" since April 2017.
  • Move conversations - Working on it - Over 3 years old, "working on it" since October 2018.
  • Custom emojis - On the backlog - Was "working on it" for a year, now demoted to the backlog.

Are any of these actually being worked on? Why do you tell people you are working on things when it's clear that no progress is being made? Why are basic, simple UI improvements requested by thousands of users, and of benefit to much of your userbase, being prioritised behind niche applications like AR headset support?

Iron Contributor

Would really like to see team meetings in a 4x4 or 5x5 grid. 3x3 is not enough!

Iron Contributor

Correction: Would really like to see team meetings in a 3x3, 4x4 or 5x5 grid. 2x2 is not enough!

Copper Contributor

Although there are plenty of things I want updated and added, offline use and pop out chats are on my list, so I'm excited.

Brass Contributor

These are great features. In schools we really need to see more Team Meeting Owner control over Mute and Recordings, pretty quickly. 

Silver Contributor

@Marissa Salazar, Breakout Rooms would be awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!  And in these days of Covid-19 and remote workers, this is very necessary!

Brass Contributor

@Marissa SalazarIf max team membership is now 10,000 and group chat is now 250.... has the meeting capacity also been increased? Thanks in advance from sunny Florida!

Copper Contributor

Hats off to you Microsoft. They way you’ve been able to change what you’re developing and focus on some amazing features that will really support us as users during these uncertain times is incredible. Thank you, for thinking about how Teams is being used now worldwide to launch features that will benefit meetings and chats.

Brass Contributor

4 Basic things:

1 - 3x3 or more video view of meeting participants PLEASE!! Look at webex!

2 - possibility to refer to specific messages when replying in a chat! So basic feature to avoid misscommunication while chating!

3 - possibility of immediate notify by mail while posting instead of going into the post and the kind of FW it to mail via "share to outlook" - The share to outlook is useless fo the send to is not filled in by default. A simple copy paste into the mail client is more convenient that this "share to outlook" eature.

4 - Review guest limitations

 

 

Copper Contributor

So an iOS device can blur the background but my computer with an i7-3700k can't because it require AVX2 ? :facepalm:

 

I'm sorry but I don't get this....

Brass Contributor

Music on Hold for Teams certified Handsets please. People paid a lot for these devices

Copper Contributor
  • Light-wight Windows Client.. Would be wonderful..
  • Recall/Delete messages before read by recipient..
  •  
Copper Contributor

work sharing

Brass Contributor

Yes, keep up the good work!! 

Copper Contributor

thank you

 

anyone know when these features will be release, already have customer asking about it:

1. Noise cancelling

2. Virtual “hand raising”

3. Low-bandwidth mode

4. Offline mode

Brass Contributor

The pop-up for chats sound great but I miss it more for video windows during meetings. We had some two-display solutions and with S4B it was easy to put the videon on one and the content on the other screen. But not with Teams (yet). 
So please go on and give us more of the windows freedome!

Steel Contributor

#1 for me would be for Teams to work in the Safari browser.  After 1 week of "all hands" remote this is causing the majority of my issues with our users and meetings with externals people DO NOT read the messages on the browser they just want it to work and when it does not they blame it on Teams not Safari.

#2 Agree with @Lars Roth on pop out windows during meetings to utilize two displays to have video on one and content on the other.

Silver Contributor

@Christine Stack, I agree a key for Teams to work well with outsiders is Safari on the Mac and full featured!  Pop out chats would be great as well.  

Copper Contributor

Cuando estará disponible una cuadricula mas amplia para ver mas de 4 participantes en las videollamadas, comunmente tengo reuniones con mas de 10 personas por video llamadas pero solo vemos 4 videos y es complicado determinar quien puede estar y quien no...

Brass Contributor

When are all these coming to our laptops it is not clearly indicated for each feature !

pop out chat windows is written to be coming in April on the official Teams Roadmap : what kind of anniversary is this when you have you presents 1 month after ?

Iron Contributor

"Soon"... 

Copper Contributor

Fancy features are nice but the basics are more important:

 

- A windows client with reasonable memory use and performance, i.e. not based on electron or other web tech.

- Switching between organizations.

Brass Contributor

We really miss the 3 features below. If you see the need for your team, please vote:)

 

  1. Switch between private and public channel, right now if you have created a private channel, there is no way to convert it to public channel or vice versa  
  2. Guest users can attach file in chat, so stupid that Guest user can only copy and paste screenshot, but there is no way for them to attach file in the chat. Almost impossible to collaborate with Freelancers or external team members
  3. External users can be added to private or public channel without being added to the Team Group first. Right now to add an external user to a channel, we have to first add the users to its mother Team Group first, then we have to make the channel private before adding he or she to the private channel. 
Iron Contributor

@Sean Ellis you forgot my favorite one also from 2016...

Teams uses 600MB and is super slow!

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/17219609-teams-uses-600mb-and-...

Copper Contributor

For the folks using Safari, I recommend downloading the new Edge or Chrome. Easy peasy.

Steel Contributor

@Sean Ellis

You are right some of these are really lacking

Multiple windows: for chat AND for call to have videofeed, presentation &chat

Multiple accounts!!!!

Calendar is in already, am I mistaken?

@Marissa SalazarGreat work of you and your teams....and keep up the good work!!! even if we still request new (basic) features

Copper Contributor

In a school environment like ours we need the ability to have more granular admin controls and the ability to apply policies to groups, not just individuals (I know that's in preview but it's not working currently).  We have students that start private chats and bully other students so we need greater controls to curb that behaviour..

Iron Contributor

thanks for all the effort, big strides are certainly being made. However the Teams S4B interop still suck, desktop sharing by escalation to Teams meeting, come on that is no solution and we cant work with our partners using that solution.

Silver Contributor

@zachflorio, while you are right that a user can download the new Edge or Chrome on a Mac to use it, from my experience, most Mac users only use Safari and no other browser so it'd be very helpful if Microsoft would just provide full support for the Safari browser.

Steel Contributor

Does anyone know if the Bookings app will somehow allow inclusion of the Add-On Conference line for external people to call into a Teams Meeting scheduled via the Bookings app?  We recently assigned an E1 license and Conference Add-on to a Shared Mailbox so our Recruiting staff could add call-in from PSTN on the interview appointments. We have a shared mailbox because we utilize a cloud service for job postings and all interaction with the candidates is done via this shared mailbox.  We may like to try using Teams & Bookings if the integration is smoother or less costly in both money and/or back office Admin support.

Copper Contributor

I have Office 365 Home.  Is it possible for me to use Microsoft Teams to host webinars with participants from another organisation?

Copper Contributor

You can host up to 250 people on Teams. You need an E5 license to host conferences or E3 licensing with an add on communication credits package. To host another organization your Teams admin needs to add their domain as a trusted domain although I think by default Teams is open to other orgs by default. Hope this helps.

An E3 + add on or E5 is only required for doing dial in audio conferencing. 

to answer your question in the home license it does not include Teams. You can sign up for free Teams and have meetings but not external scheduled meetings like the Enterprise Office 365.  

Although I believe there are a free Corona Virus offers for six months which gives you an E1 type license which can accomplish this.  It will require a new tenant setup etc.  

More info here. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoftteams/e1-trial-license

Iron Contributor

$400 for those headphones (Bose NC700)?!? No thanks. 

Copper Contributor

Teams needs to boost standard meeting size to a minimum of 500 people and preferred up to 1,000. The live events work with higher capacities but I am often finding that we have to rely on other tools to fill the void in global departmental meetings from 250-1,000 participants.

Copper Contributor

We have to be able to see more than 4 people at a time during a video call! that should be a priority add.

Copper Contributor

I would really like to see the feature request in UserVoice for Integrate with MacOS notifications completed (3175 votes) as the notifications in Teams for macOS are horrible.

 

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/16941685-use-built-in-notifica...

Brass Contributor

Really need to be able to view everyone in the group (including video even if it is lowres for non-focused attendees) on a separate panel not just the last 4 people that spoke. This is a huge limitation of Teams at the moment. Your primary competitor does this and if you built this it would be useful.

Copper Contributor

Great update! I can't wait for it :hearteyes:

Copper Contributor

Please, please add a shortcut key combination to bring Microsoft Teams to the forefront and place the cursor/insertion point in the Search bar.
The key combo for Skype was CTRL+ALT+Shift+3. I know that is A LOT of keys and sounds complex but it was incredibly useful, I use it all the time... We always have so many windows open on our desktop, this is a great time saver. PLEASE CONSIDER it!!

 

I added this via user voice as well :)

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/39881836-need-shortcut-key-to-...



Copper Contributor

Show video for all people in Video meeting

https://microsoftteams.uservoice.com/forums/555103-public/suggestions/17010055-show-video-for-all-pe...

Requested in 2016. 

Simple, we need to see everyone in the chat, as exciting as that one guy in a factory nowhere using walkie talkie is!

@Marissa Salazar please help, C19 is changing the game and this is has become essential .

Brass Contributor

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE rollout the most requested and completely ignored feature of at the very minimum 3x3, 4x4, 5x5 + people in a live meeting. Webex and Zoom have been doing this for so long now, I have no other alternative but to setup and pay for Zoom licences.

 

I find it odd, that user voice requests are almost always ignored - why is this? 

Copper Contributor

Requests... we all got em'...

  • More screen layouts for Live Events. Those things rock but 2 layouts? Ugh.
  • Multi-tenant! If we could readily give access to a shared Teams space for all companies in an org that has grown through aquistion. Easy auth, brand identity but seamless collaboration... ahhh... pinch me.
Copper Contributor

I don't think I saw the new TASK APP for Teams.  Is that coming soon?

Brass Contributor

I am interested in how this hand-raise feature works, and how it works when you can't see everyone's video in a meeting of more than 4 people?

 

Also how much longer do we have to wait to see more than 4 people in a call?

Copper Contributor

Does your new background noise suppression eliminate dogs barking?

 

Dean

Brass Contributor

Urgently need the ability to see more than 4 people in a video call - over 20,000 votes for this in UserVoice but no input from Microsoft since Jan 14th when they were 'making good progress on this feature'. Best way to lose customers is to ignore them. Wake up microsoft and at least have the courtesy to update customers.

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‎Jan 26 2021 12:47 PM
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