What’s new in Microsoft Teams – May update
Published May 02 2018 04:39 PM 69.1K Views
Microsoft

Communicate more effectively with new chat functionality

 

Send a message from the command box

You can now send a chat message directly from the command box without leaving the page you’re on. Simply type the @ symbol and someone's name into the command box at the top of your screen and type your message to start a chat conversation. Thus, you can send a message without switching context.

 

Send a message from the command box.gif

 

Send a chat from a contact card

Another easy way to relay a message is to hover over someone's profile picture to send a quick chat right from their contact card. This makes it simple to switch from an open channel conversation to a private chat with someone.

 

Hover over someone’s contact card to send a chat messageHover over someone’s contact card to send a chat message

Dial out of (or into) a group call

Add someone from outside of your organization into a group call in Teams by dialing their number. You've also got the option of distributing a dial-in phone number so anyone outside of your organization can join. Remember, this feature is only available in group calls right now. 

 

Distribute a dial-in phone number or dial someone’s number to add them to a group callDistribute a dial-in phone number or dial someone’s number to add them to a group call

 

Collaborate more effectively

 

Get a reminder that your team is expiring 

You can now renew your team (and the underlying Office 365 group) directly from Teams. If your team is set to expire within the next 30 days, you will see a notification. You can then extend the life of your team by visiting ‘Settings’. Here, you can also proactively renew your team before the 30-day notice, (which can be especially helpful if you are leaving for a long vacation for example). (Please note that this feature is only available to AAD premium members and a notification will only show if your IT admin has set an expiration date for teams in your organization). For more details, visit this link.

 

A notification will appear if your team is set to expire in 30 days or lessA notification will appear if your team is set to expire in 30 days or less

Access team expiration information from settingsAccess team expiration information from settings

Auto-favorite important channels

Whenever a team owner creates a new team or channel, they can now auto-favorite important channels for the rest of the team. By doing so, the channel will automatically show up in every team member's favorites making it easy for them to discover and access the new channel. (Team members can of course unfavorite the channel if they want to).

 

Auto-favorite channels upon the creation of a team or channelAuto-favorite channels upon the creation of a team or channel

New views in Microsoft Planner tab

Planner has made some updates to integrate more seamlessly into Teams. With Schedule view, you can get an overview of upcoming tasks and drag and drop them to set dates.

 

View upcoming tasks with Schedule viewView upcoming tasks with Schedule view

In the Charts view you can stay up to date on the status of your plans.

 

Organize tasks with Charts viewOrganize tasks with Charts view

 

Lastly, with the Filter and Group by options, you can now group tasks by buckets such as “Assigned To”, “Progress”, “Due Date” and “Labels”.

Read the full blog post announcement here to learn more.

 

Organize tasks using the Filter and Group By optionsOrganize tasks using the Filter and Group By options

 

Add SharePoint pages, news articles and lists as unique tabs within channels

 

You can now use the SharePoint tab to place important pages, news articles and lists as individual tabs in a channel. This allows you to access and fully interact with the dynamic, data-driven pages and news articles and surface them right in the context of your work in Teams. You can fully interact with the content – including filtering and views for lists.

 

Add SharePoint pages, news articles and lists as tabsAdd SharePoint pages, news articles and lists as tabs

Bring all your SharePoint team news into discussions – After publishing your news articles, you want to keep everyone up-to-date and automatically spark discussions directly in Teams. To enable that, you can now use the SharePoint news connector to have each SharePoint team site news article generate a new discussion thread within a Microsoft Teams channel. To get started, click on “…” right next to a channel, choose “Connectors” and then search for “SharePoint News”.

 

Connect SharePoint team news to automatically start new chat threads per news item each time one is created from SharePoint team sites.Connect SharePoint team news to automatically start new chat threads per news item each time one is created from SharePoint team sites.

Read the full announcement blog post from the SharePoint team to learn more.

 

Work with confidence: new features for IT admins

Announcing the new Microsoft Teams & Skype for Business Admin Center  

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. This new experience provides you with a unified experience to manage both Teams and Skype for Business and will also incorporate Call Analytics and the Call Quality Dashboard.

In addition to giving you one place to manage all aspects of the service, the portal provides administrators with additional functionality, including new end-to-end insights and the ability to manage Teams settings on a user level.

 

Read the full announcement blog post to learn more.

 

Manage both Teams and Skype for Business in the new business admin centerManage both Teams and Skype for Business in the new business admin center

New features available on Teams iOS & Android apps

Enhanced Meetings capabilities

There are a couple new features that will enhance your meetings experience. Request a call to your phone from Teams to connect to a meeting and dial into a meeting when you only have a cellular connection.

 

Do more with Calling

Now, easily turn a 1:1 call into a group call, transfer a 1:1 call to someone else, or forward calls.

 

Create teams from mobile in Teams EDU

Teachers and students can now create, edit and delete teams on mobile.

 

Important update on Windows phone apps for Microsoft Teams 

The Windows Phone app for Skype for Business is being retired. After this change takes effect, new users will no longer be able to download the app from the Microsoft Store, and the app will no longer be supported. We will continue to invest in Skype for Business mobile apps for iOS and Android and also in desktop apps for Windows and Mac.

 

Read the full announcement to learn more.

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.

 

—Keara James, product marketing manager Microsoft Teams

 

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‎Aug 24 2022 05:57 PM
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